The Birthday Mystery
by Lihau
Summary: For that hard-to-shop-for detective, a mystery may just be the perfectly perfect gift.
1. Chapter 1

**The Birthday Mystery**

_Disclaimer__: With much regret I must say/I don't own the Bob-Whites in any way/If I did, then you would know/'Cause I'd shout the news from here to Idaho_

_Apology__: Sorry for the repulsive poem. I still don't own Trixie Belden or any related characters._

_Rating__: This story is rated K+ for very mild language and very mild violence in some chapters._

_Character Portrayal__: The characters have been tweaked slightly—you know, just so that they can fit into the 21__st__ century comfortably and without the Big Strong Men types having to rescue the girls all the time, and other such stuff. If anyone seems too OOC, however, that's probably because I haven't read the books in a couple of years and I'm writing this from memories of characters/places, etc._

_Romance__: Although (depending on how you read it) there might be one or two suggestions that Dan has a crush on Trixie and that Jim isn't all that happy about it, that's as far as the romance gets in this story._

* * *

**Chapter One**

_Saturday, April 17_

"Hey, Danno," Mart greeted his wood-chopping friend.

Dan whipped his head around to look in surprise at the blonde. He let out a sigh. "Geez, Mart, don't you know that it's not a good idea to startle someone with an axe?"

"My apologies," said Mart cheerfully.

Turning back to the piece of wood he was about to chop in half, he remarked semi-cheerfully that Belden did not sound sincere. "What do you want?"

"Daniel, I'm hurt! Why do you assume that I want something?"

Dan halved the wood and looked again to Mart. "It was just an expression. But _now_ I'm suspicious. So what do you want?"

"Nothing, actually. I just came to inform you that we have decided upon the gifts that we intend to bestow upon my feminine sibling and, with your approval, we shall purchase said gifts."

"Would it really hurt you so much to speak like a normal person?"

"I am supernormal."

"I'd say subnormal but, you know, whatever." He put another piece of wood on the tree stump and halved it before asking, "So what are we getting Trixie?"

"Well, with everybody chipping in, our funds amount to fifty-five dollars. We're going to buy her three Lucy Radcliffe books—the nice-looking hardcover ones, since the paperback ones look kind of cheap and ugly."

"Sounds good."

"Oh, and we're giving her something else, too."

Silence.

More silence.

"This is where you want me to look like I'm dying of curiosity and ask you what it is, right?"

"Pretty much. But, my unenthusiastic compadre, I'll just tell you, anyway. We're giving her a mystery."

Dan raised one eyebrow quizzically, then asked in a suspicious tone, "Have you been exploring eBay again?"

"Nope. We're going to think up some kind of mystery for her to solve. Buried treasure—disappearing something-or-other—suspicious behavior—something like that. The Bob-Whites shall convene at the clubhouse at 1400 hours to discuss this mystery in further detail."

"If you're trying to confuse me, it's not working this time," Dan grinned triumphantly. "I'm up on my military timekeeping. Two o'clock, right?"

Mart nodded. "Felicitations, _mein freund_. Can you make it?"

Dan glanced at his watch. "I might be a little late but I'll come, soon as I'm finished my chores."

"Roger that. Want any help?"

"Nah, I've got it covered. Thanks."

* * *

"So, any mysterious ideas?" asked Jim of the other four Bob-Whites present in the clubhouse at two o'clock.

"I suppose a murder is out of the question," Mart joked.

"Yes," Brian said dryly, "unless you'd care to volunteer for the part of the corpse."

Diana giggled and Honey suggested, "How about a robbery? Then we can let Trixie have some fun chasing around a mysterious thief once or twice."

"It's kind of warm," Jim remarked.

"Short chases."

"Okay," Brian conceded. He shrugged to Jim, "She'd probably like 'the thrill of the chase', anyway. We'll make sure she stays hydrated."

"But what priceless possession will be purloined?" Mart queried.

"_THE BOOKS_!" Diana all but shrieked.

Everybody stared at her, some of them wincing at her high-pitched exclamation, others silently questioning her sanity.

Diana blushed and clarified, "The Lucy Radcliffe books we're going to give her. We can put them in a box and have the pretend-thief steal the box, so when she eventually catches the thief she can find her presents in the stolen box."

This idea was met with a chorus of approval.

"That's a great idea, Di," Brian nodded. He teased with a poorly hidden smile, "But I don't think it was exactly scream-worthy."

Mart thought that Diana's face might explode if it turned any redder, so he decided to save that pretty face by switching the subject back to the mystery at hand. "If it's a robbery," he said, "who's going to get robbed? Any volunteers?"

"How about Diana?" Honey suggested. "If we have the robbery at her house, Trixie can chase the thief down to the Manor House stables. It's not exactly a short run, but it isn't exactly long, either."

"How about it?" Jim asked Diana. "Feeling up to being robbed?"

Diana grinned, nodding. She said excitedly, "Real mysteries can be kind of scary, but this one is fun! I'll be a good victim, I promise. I'll scream and be panic-stricken and everything!"

"That's the spirit!" Mart said, punching the air with his fist.

"So Diana gets robbed," Honey murmured, evidently thinking out a plan as she spoke, "and the thief darts out the back door of her house, carrying the box. The thief runs toward the stables—"

"And keeps Trixie far enough behind that he or she can pause at the lake to catch his or her breath," Jim suggested. "We don't want Trixie _or_ the thief getting overheated."

"Well, the thief might have to put up with being a little uncomfortable," Brian pointed out. "We can't just have him—we'll say it's a him—running around in a T-shirt and shorts. Trixie would recognize him in a second."

"How about that coat of yours, Jim? That pea coat that Trixie's never seen?" Honey asked. "Even if you're not the thief, it's big enough that it'll cover the thief enough to keep Trixie from immediately knowing who it is."

"Pea coat?" Diana wondered.

Jim explained, "It's a Navy jacket. Kind of like what you might picture on a salty sea captain. Mine's black, though."

"Black's nice and mysterious," remarked Di.

"A mysterious coat for a mysterious stranger," Mart grinned. "How about some sunglasses for our stranger? Nice big ones to mysteriously cover his face."

"That should do it," Brian nodded. "So what happens once the mysterious stranger-slash-box thief makes it to the stables?"

"Ooh, let's get Regan in on it!" urged Honey. "If the thief stays far enough ahead, we can have Regan let him into his apartment, and the thief can hide out up there while Trixie investigates the stables."

"Sounds good to me," Jim said. "We should probably tell everybody except for Trixie about the mystery, so they don't accidentally step in at an embarrassing moment and ruin the whole thing."

"Everybody except for Bobby and my brothers and sisters," Diana corrected. "They'd march straight up to her and tell her all about it."

"Okay, we'll make sure that everyone who should be in on it, is in on it," Brian said. "But before we get any farther, we should probably decide: who'll be our 'mysterious stranger'?"

"Someone who runs fast," Honey suggested. "We don't want Trixie to just pounce on the 'stranger' and end the mystery right away."

Jim replied, "Agreed. You're pretty fast, Honey, but you hang out with Trixie so much that she'll think it's weird if you suddenly aren't with her anymore. So I guess that takes you out of the running." He grinned. "Literally and figuratively."

"And I can't run for very long," Diana piped up. "Count me out. Please?"

Brian nodded. "You'll have to stay in your house and scream about the box being stolen, anyway. You're the victim, remember?"

"Oh, right," Diana said sheepishly.

Brian was about to ask for a volunteer when the clubhouse door opened and Dan stepped inside.

"Man, it's like July out there!" he exclaimed, shutting the door. "Awesome—the fan's working!" Dan was just about to go over to stand in front of the fan for a few moments when he noticed that Mart was grinning at him.

"Uh, Mart? What's with the Cheshire Cat look?"

"Ladies and gentlemen," Mart announced to the other Bob-Whites. He made a sweeping gesture in Dan's direction. "Our mysterious stranger."

Dan stared blankly at Mart and then at everybody else, since they'd started grinning, too.

"Your what?" he asked.

"We were trying to figure out the mystery that we're giving Trixie for her birthday," Honey explained, still smiling broadly. She summarized the agreed-upon mystery as it stood for the moment.

"And thus," concluded Mart, "we applaud your contribution to our mystifying endeavors, mysterious stranger."

Dan blinked. "Ooookay… so let me get this straight. You want me to let Trixie chase me around the woods a few times—in ninety-degree weather—while I'm wearing a coat—in ninety-degree weather—and carrying a box of hardcover books—in ninety-degree weather."

Brian scratched the top of his head. "Well… yes."

"ARE YOU NUTS?!"

Everybody looked to the door as it once again opened, this time admitting Trixie Belden to the clubhouse. She'd apparently heard Dan's shout and noticed his agitated appearance, because she immediately asked, "What happened?"

The others shot concerned looks at each other and Mart was about to chime in with an excuse for the newly-appointed "thief" when Dan said, "Uh, Brian was just telling me that… Peter Pan was played by a girl in that movie we watched last night."

Trixie raised an eyebrow. "You mean you didn't notice?"

"Uh, no…."

"Not even when the credits went by, saying that Peter was played by Mary Martin?"

Jim pinched the bridge of his nose and Honey cast a worried look in Dan's direction.

"I, uh… don't usually read the credits," Dan said with a nervous chuckle.

Trixie's blue eyes stared suspiciously into Dan's black ones for several nail-biting moments. At long last, she shrugged. "Well, okay, I guess. If you say so."

Several breaths were quietly released in relief. Trixie took the seat next to Honey, and Dan sat down beside Mart, who whispered to him, "Brother, that was a lame excuse of an excuse."

"It worked, didn't it?"

Mart was "compelled to acknowledge the veracity of that proclamation".

Dan had to try very hard to not whack Mart upside the head.

Mart lamented how everybody misunderstood his genius with words.

Dan stopped trying and bonked him on the bean with a pencil case.

Trixie snorted at this and asked, "Are you guys _sure_ you're friends?"

"What?" Dan retorted. "It's not like you and me don't always argue."

"We don't always argue."

"Yeah, we do."

"Do not!"

They bickered on, tossing variations of 'do not' and 'do so' back and forth until Jim cut in, "I hate to interrupt this intelligent conversation, Trixie, but you do realize that you're proving his point, don't you?"

Trixie's jaw went slack for a moment before she started moving her mouth wordlessly. When she finally regained the power of speech, she used it to say to Dan, "Stop smiling!"

* * *

_Constructive criticism is always welcome! (I won't necessarily heed your advice, but it's still welcome.)_

_This story will sort of be in two parts. Part one will focus more on the BWGs other than Trixie, and part two will be Trixie-centric. I'll let you know when the second part starts. (Dan will play a moderately significant role in this story because I felt the poor schmuck didn't get enough attention in the books.)_

_Thanks for reading!_


	2. Chapter 2

**The Birthday Mystery**

_Disclaimer__: I don't own Trixie Belden or any related characters or objects. (Please note how I didn't make you suffer through another poem.)_

_Reviews__: Well, I must say I am dumbfounded and flabbergasted that Chapter One got as many reviews as it did. I was a bit concerned about how "Part One" turned out (I haven't finished writing Part Two yet), so it was a pleasant surprise. Thank you! Now please enjoy your weekly update with:_

**Chapter Two**

_Sunday, April 18_

Last night, Brian and Mart had told their parents about the birthday mystery that they and the other BWGs were planning for Trixie. Mr. and Mrs. Belden thought it was a marvelous idea: Trixie could finally solve a case without having her parents fall victim to stress-induced heart attacks in the process.

Therefore, they naturally wanted to help out however they could. The plotting Bob-Whites took up Mrs. Belden's offer of assistance that very Sunday, asking her to keep Trixie out of the way for a few hours so they could finish planning the mystery without interruption. Moms accordingly persuaded (read: gently but firmly ordered) Trixie to accompany her and Bobby on a shopping trip in the afternoon.

Since the clubhouse's lone fan had died its long-anticipated death at the end of yesterday's meeting, the six club members hoped to catch a breeze by sitting outside, under the crabapple trees on the Beldens' property.

"Okay, before we even get to the actual mystery-planning," Dan began, "I just want to say that I'm not lugging around a box of books while trying to outrun Trixie. It's impossible. And doing it with the coat on would make me pass out from heatstroke." He smirked. "Fun way to end a mystery, no?"

"We can't help the coat, because Trixie would recognize you too easily without something covering you up," Brian said, "but you're right about the box. You can carry an empty box and pretend that it's heavy."

Dan considered insisting on the coat issue (Why not a rain poncho?) but decided that, considering he had yet to contribute to the planning of the mystery, he might as well suck it up and do the physical stuff. (Better yet, he could do some whining about it, which might be fun.)

"Just try to pace yourself," Jim urged Dan. "Now, we need to figure out what happens after Sticky-Hands Dan gets to the stables."

Diana giggled at the nickname, Dan grinned, and Mart suggested, "Why don't we rewind a little. While Ol' Sticky-Hands is catching his breath by the lake, he can drop a piece of paper with a place and a time on it. Trixie, if she's any kind of detective, will notice the paper, read it, and go to the appointed place."

"Sounds like an idea," Honey beamed. "How about Mr. Maypenny's cabin? We all know it's perfectly safe, but it's far enough from Crabapple Farm and Manor House to seem semi-mysterious."

"Let's make it for Saturday afternoon," suggested Brian. "That way Trixie can dive straight into spring break week with a mystery to keep her occupied. Someone can dress up and have some sort of covert meeting with Sticky-Hands for her to spy on."

"How about Brains Belden?" Dan said, lightly punching the oldest Bob-White in the shoulder and muttering "not you" at Mart. "You'll be the brains of the outfit and give me instructions on what to do with the box. We can just split up and run like heck if Trixie decides to leap into the action instead of spying on us."

Diana made a face. "Wait… does this mean we all have to have dorky codenames?"

"Only us people with secret identities," Dan reassured her. "You're still Diana, and I think Honey's still Honey. I don't know what Mart and Jim are gonna do." He teased with a smirk, "Maybe they won't do anything: lazy bums are leaving it all to the rest of us."

"We'll do something, I swear," Jim insisted. "We just can't cram everything in at once."

Brian put in, "After we see how the afternoon meeting goes, we'll meet in the evening to decide what to do next. We can plan the mystery a little bit at a time so we can make sure everything fits in with Trixie's reaction. Sound good to you guys?"

Everybody nodded, and Jim declared, "Meeting adjourned, then."

* * *

_Friday after school, April 23, Diana Lynch's room_

"Remind me, why do _I_ gotta be the mysterious stranger?" Dan asked, bending over to make sure his shoelaces were tied tightly.

"Because you have black hair and black hair is mysterious-looking," suggested Diana.

He straightened up and put his hands on his hips. "Then _you_ go."

"I can't—I have to be robbed. Besides, I can't run fast enough," she protested. "The mystery person has to be able to outrun Trixie."

"Then Mart can go. He's always bragging about how fast he is."

"Then we'd lose the mysterious black hair."

"Make him wear a black beanie."

Diana giggled. "Beanies aren't mysterious, Dan."

"Yeah, they are!" Dan started gesturing wildly and joking, "Write 'FBI' on the side of it and it'll be _plenty_ mysterious. 'The Mystery of the FBI Man in Sleepyside': why is he here? Why does he run away from short blond girls? _Loads_ of burning questions! Come _onnn_!"

Diana, still looking amused, shook her head. "We've already worked out a lot of the mystery—no room for random FBI men in part one. Now put on the coat, already, or you'll be late." She walked over to her window and peered outside. "Hurry up! I think I see them."

Dan, grinning slightly, gave a mock sigh of resignation as he pulled on the black pea coat that Jim had loaned/forced upon him. He was going to button it up when he realized something. "Uh, Di?"

"What?" she asked, eyes glued on the two small figures in the distance.

"Is it mysterious to have your hands almost totally covered by your coat's sleeves?"

She finally turned to look and her mouth dropped open. "Oh, no! How are you going to hold on to the mysterious package?!"

"Uh… let me see." Dan pulled up the sleeves, but they fell right back down again. "Well, can't do much without my hands. Help me roll this thing up—quick."

Diana hustled over and helpfully rolled up his left coat sleeve. As she was fixing the right sleeve, however, the left one seemed to threaten to come undone at any second. Once she was finished with the second sleeve, she decided, "I'll grab a couple of safety pins."

"Fine, but it better be fast—I wanna get a few seconds ahead of Trix before she starts chasing me."

Diana hastily retrieved the pins from her desk drawer and returned to fasten the sleeves near Dan's wrists.

"There. That should hold." While he buttoned up the coat, she grabbed the bottle of water she'd put on her desk earlier and handed it to him. "Here. Brian says you need to stay hydrated, so take a drink before you go."

Dan unscrewed the cap and swallowed a good amount of water. After handing the bottle back to her, he put on the large sunglasses and turned up the collar of the coat. He picked up the box and muttered, "Seriously, though. This is _so stupid_."

"You'll be fine," Diana said reassuringly. "Remember: if you start feeling too bad, just stop running. We'd prefer ruining the mystery to making you sick."

"How considerate."

She slapped his arm lightly. "Don't whine. You'd do anything for Trixie and you know it."

"Sure. But that don't mean I won't complain about it first." He shifted the box slightly in his grasp. "Are you sure she won't recognize me?"

"Absolutely. _I_ hardly recognize you."

"Liar."

"Yup, but I already know it's you, anyway, so I don't count."

"I didn't ask if _you_ recognized me—I asked if _she'd_—"

"They're almost here! Go!" She opened her bedroom door and Dan promptly sprinted out.

Closing her eyes, she counted, "One chimpanzee… two chimpanzee… three chimpanzee," and then ran after him. She didn't see him until she got to the back door of the house, where he was fiddling with the doorknob.

"What are you still doing here?" cried Diana. "You're supposed to be out of here by now!"

Dan turned an irritated face to her. "Well, excuse me for not walking through walls! The door's locked!"

"Locked? Then unlock it!"

"It's jammed!"

"Keep trying!"

"I don't have time to keep trying!" he exclaimed, even as he rattled the knob and fiddled with the locking mechanism one more time. "Quick, help me open a window!"

* * *

Honey had been worried that she would not look surprised enough when Dan bolted out of the Lynch home, but she need not have been concerned: she looked genuinely stunned when a black-clad figure vaulted out of the window by the back door, stumbled a bit as he tried not to drop the box in his hands, and darted toward the woods.

She and Trixie were still a fairly reasonable distance from Diana's house when Dan made his escape. This was mainly thanks to Honey, who had managed to stall a bit in the interest of giving 'Sticky-Hands' a good head start in fleeing from Trixie, who was very fast when she was determined to catch something—or someone.

A scream came from the window and Trixie, whose eyes had been following the escapee in bewilderment, snapped her attention to Diana. The Lynch girl leaned out the window and yelled, "Stop! You can't take that! Help!"

Trixie, as expected, immediately dashed forward to give chase to the box thief.

Honey took a deep breath and called, "Trixie, come back! It might be dangerous!" She started running quickly (but not _too_ quickly) after her friend.

"Hey! You!" Trixie shouted to her target. "Give that back!"

Her prey paid no heed to this demand, instead running deeper into the woods and veering off to the left, on the path that led to the Wheelers' preserve.

"It's not yours!" Trixie continued yelling, narrowly preventing herself from falling after tripping over a rock in the path. "Don't be a moron!"

But the box thief evidently wanted to be a moron, because he kept running all the way to the Wheeler lake, where he stopped to catch his breath. He glanced back at Trixie and, noticing that she was getting awfully close, ran off again—after 'accidentally' dropping a slip of paper. Trixie noticed this and snatched up the paper before continuing the chase.

"Hey, you dropped this! Hey! Drop the box, too!"

Dan barely managed to keep from laughing at this as he ran along the last leg of his trip. The stables were in sight when Trixie again called, sounding a bit out of breath, "Aren't you hot, running in that coat? Regan! Regan!"

Regan, in the stables, peeked discreetly out the window and (seeing Dan running from Trixie) hurriedly mounted the stairs to his apartment and opened the door. He waited, holding it open as Dan stampeded into the stables and barreled up the stairs. Once his nephew was safely in the apartment, Regan slammed the door shut and went back down to the stables to greet Trixie.

"I thought I heard you shouting about something," Regan remarked as Trixie peered searchingly into the stalls. "What's going on?"

"Regan! There's some guy and he's kind of short and wearing a coat, which is weird since it's really hot, and he stole something from Di and he came in here and he's wearing sunglasses, too, and he looks like he's got a wig on and have you seen him and can I have a drink since I've been running forever?"

After taking a moment to figure out what Trixie was trying to say, Regan said, "I was upstairs, so I didn't see anything in the stables. But I can hear what goes on down here pretty well, and I didn't hear anybody but you." He shrugged. "We can look around if you want, though. Get some water from the cooler and I'll start looking for your mystery man."

Trixie went over to the water cooler that Mr. Wheeler had recently purchased for the stables and, after she'd gulped down two cups' worth of water, tossed out the paper cup and renewed her search.

"So what did this guy steal?" Regan asked.

"A box of—of—well, it's a box. About this big." She motioned with her hands.

"Okay. Well, I can't find anything, Trixie. Are you sure he came in here?"

"Absolutely, one hundred percent, completely and totally sure! I mean, how could I not notice where he went? He had this huge black coat on the whole time I was chasing him! He must've stopped _somewhere_ around here, anyway, or else he'll collapse from heat exhaustion or something!"

She and Regan turned their heads to look at the entrance, where Honey now stood, panting a bit.

"Trix… did you…?"

Trixie's curls bounced as she shook her head ruefully. "I lost him. He just vanished! Oh, but he dropped this near the lake." She pulled a piece of notebook paper out of her pocket and the other two stood by her to read the torn note:

_3:30 Sat_

_Mayp_

Honey frowned. "What's a 'Mayp'?"

"It's ripped, see?" Trixie said. "I bet it's supposed to be 'Maypenny'!"

"What would Mr. Maypenny have to do with this guy?" Regan asked.

"I don't know," replied Trixie, "but 'Maypenny' is the only word that makes any kind of sense, so that must be it. And Saturday—that's tomorrow!" She furrowed her brow. "I wonder if it's three-thirty A.M. or three-thirty P.M."

"Well, I'm sure your parents wouldn't want you investigating things at three in the morning," Regan said firmly. "I'll just tell Mr. Maypenny to keep on the alert."

Trixie looked slightly disappointed, as she realized that Regan was right, but said, "Fine, but if it's three in the afternoon, I'm going to be there!" She pushed the paper back into her jeans pocket and told Honey, "We'd better go tell Di that we couldn't get her box back. Then we can go tell Mr. Maypenny about the note for you, Regan."

"And you can do all that on horseback. Susie and Strawberry could use the exercise."

Trixie grinned and, as she, Honey, and Regan started saddling the horses, said, "This is great! There's a mystery just in time for my birthday! It's like an early present!"

Regan and Honey looked at each other and tried not to grin too broadly.

"I mean, I'm not happy that something was stolen from Diana, but… it'll be fun getting it back for her." She nodded resolutely and took the reins to lead Susie out of the stables. Honey followed, leading Strawberry.

As soon as Trixie and Honey were almost out of sight and he could be certain that they wouldn't suddenly turn around for anything, Regan returned upstairs to his apartment. He shut the door and looked to the couch, where Dan was sitting down, slouching as he drank from a large glass of water. The black coat and sunglasses were strewn over the armchair, on top of the box.

"So how's the box thief doing?" Regan asked, taking a seat next to his nephew.

"A little sweaty and totally pooped, but not bad." He glanced over at him. "Did Trixie think it was me?"

"I don't think so. She described a coat-wearing weirdo with sunglasses and a wig."

"A wig?!" Dan, suddenly looking much more energetic, leapt up and ran to the bathroom and the nearest mirror.

Regan laughed. "Relax! It's probably because the way you had your collar turned up made your hair stick out at funny angles!"

Dan returned and fell back into the couch.

The redhead grinned. "But just in case…."

"Ow!" Dan glared at his uncle. "What're you pulling my hair for?"

"Just checking. Trixie's a bright kid: she could've been right about the wig."

"You're a comedian—you know that, right?" He stood up. "I'd better get going. I still have homework."

"Want a ride? You can take Starlight and I'll go with you on Jupiter, and I'll take them both back with me."

"That'd be good. But no way am I putting that coat back on so soon. Got a bag or something I can keep it in?"

"How about a garbage bag?"

"That'll do. Maybe I can use it to bury your body in, too." He pointed at his own hair. "A wig, huh?"

Regan laughed. "Well, let's get a move on. If we hurry, you can murder me and I'll still get back in time to finish work before nightfall."

* * *

_Thanks for reading!_


	3. Chapter 3

**The Birthday Mystery**

_Disclaimer_: I own nothing. Nothing, I say! (Melodramatically sobs for a while.)

**Chapter Three**

"We've got to be there when the thief goes to Mr. Maypenny's," Trixie said as she and Honey rode over to the Lynch estate.

"Not if it's at three A.M.," Honey objected. "I'm already tired from school and chasing you while you chased the thief. By the time we've finished talking to Di and Mr. Maypenny, I'm going to be too exhausted to do anything but collapse into bed!" She paused. "Except for dinner at your place, of course. But that's much more relaxing than chasing after thieves!"

"But I can't go alone! You have to be there, too!"

"Mr. Maypenny will be there," Honey pointed out. "And Dan, too. They can tell you if anything happens. If it's three-thirty in the afternoon, _then_ I'll go with you." She said seriously, "And you'd better not try to go there on your own, Trixie Belden. It really isn't a good idea to walk through the woods alone in the middle of the night."

Trixie sighed in frustration before a tiny grin briefly graced her face. "Fine. I won't do the stakeout alone," she promised solemnly.

Honey tossed her a suspicious glance. "What are you planning?"

"Nothing! Gleeps, Honey, you're so suspicious. C'mon, Susie." She urged the mare into a canter.

Honey let out a soft breath and murmured, "Let's go, Strawberry. We have to keep up."

Once near Diana's house, Trixie and Honey dismounted and dropped the reins, knowing that Susie and Strawberry would stay right where they were. The girls walked up the porch steps to the back door and Trixie rang the doorbell.

"I'll get it!" they heard Diana's voice from inside. Moments later, the back door started rattling. Trixie and Honey looked at each other curiously.

"Sorry!" Diana's voice came. "It's jammed, I forgot! Can you go to the front door?"

"Okay," Trixie agreed as Honey silently mused, _So __**that's**__ why Dan jumped out the window!_

And so Trixie and Honey went around to the front, where Diana ushered them in, asking eagerly, "Did you catch him?"

Two shakes of the head answered her, and Trixie added, "We couldn't get the box back, either. I'm sorry, Di."

Diana sighed melancholically.

"What was in the box, anyway?" asked Trixie.

"Oh—um—stuff. Yeah. Stuff." Diana grinned nervously.

Trixie frowned. "What, you can't tell your best friends?"

"Sorry, Trix, but I really can't!" She said pleadingly, "But I really need it back. Can you _please_ get it back for me, Trixie? Pretty please? I implode you!"

Trixie frowned deeper. "'Implode'?"

Honey said, "I think you mean 'implore', Di."

"Oh—um—yeah. I implore you!"

Trixie shrugged. "Of course I'll get it back. Or, at least, I'll try. Are you sure you can't tell me what's in it? That might help, if the thief loses the box."

"I _reaaally_ can't tell you. Trust me." Diana paused. "Pretty please, get it back?"

"I already said 'yes'. Gleeps, that must be some box!"

"It is," nodded Diana.

"Shouldn't we call the police if it's that important?" Honey wondered.

"Yeah," Trixie agreed reluctantly. "Somebody broke into your house, too."

"But I can't!" Diana wailed, wishing that Honey hadn't made things difficult for her. "I can't explain, but _you_ have to get it back for me! Pretty please!"

"If you say so," Trixie agreed, happy that Diana was entrusting this mission to her. "I guess we'd better go to Mr. Maypenny's," she said to Honey.

"Actually, Trix, I really am pretty tired. Why don't you go while I stay here and tell Di about the note and everything? I'll meet you at your house later. Jim and I _are_ still invited for dinner, right? You aren't mad at me?"

"Of course you're still invited. You can come, too, if you want," she added to Diana.

Diana shook her head. "Thanks, but a business friend of Daddy's is coming over for supper. He's bringing his kids, so the twins and I are supposed to be here."

"Okay. See you later, then."

"Yes, see you," Diana nodded. As soon as Trixie was out of the house, she whirled on Honey. "What were you trying to do with that 'call the police' thingy? I almost totally freaked out! And then I would've given away the whole thing! And that would've been horribly horrible!"

Seeing how frazzled Diana truly seemed, Honey apologized. "But if somebody didn't suggest calling the police soon, Trixie would probably start suspecting that something strange was going on."

"I guess so," admitted Diana. She hugged Honey. "I'm sorry for yelling at you."

"That's okay. I would've been upset with me, too."

They both giggled.

"Come on," said the Lynch girl. "We can hang out in my room until you have to go to the Beldens' for dinner."

"Good idea. I really need to sit down, anyway. Running all the way to the stables from here is pretty hard work."

"Did Dan seem okay with that coat on?" Diana asked.

"He wasn't doing any worse than I was," Honey reassured her. "He'll probably feel it tomorrow, though."

Diana smiled at Honey's slightly concerned expression and joked, "Well, it's okay as long as he's living and breathing…."

Meanwhile, Trixie was on her way to Mr. Maypenny's cabin. As she rode there, she mulled over the mysterious happenings of the afternoon:

Diana had been acting weird about that box. _Well, she was probably just upset because someone stole it from her. But it's still weird that she wouldn't tell me what was in it. What kind of secret could be in there?_

It was a little strange that Regan hadn't told her to call the police. _Maybe he didn't completely believe me? After all, he didn't hear anything in the stables except for me. And he's always teasing me about my overactive imagination._

The fact that the thief was, well, _stupid_ enough to wear a heavy-looking coat on a hot summerlike day was definitely very unusual. _And it looked kind of big for a guy his size, too. Wait, am I sure that it's a guy? Why am I assuming that it's a guy? Because… it looked like a man's coat and he was wearing men's jeans. So it's either a guy with an oversized coat or a girl in men's clothing._

Mr. Maypenny's home eventually came into view. The front door was open when she first saw it, but it slammed shut the next second. Trixie frowned. Here was another mysterious thing: that door slamming. Mr. Maypenny certainly did not slam doors, and he had by this point drilled it into Dan's head that the boy was to follow his example.

_Maybe it was Dan and he was in a hurry for some reason? Right now, Mr. Maypenny's probably telling him not to slam the door._ She nodded to herself before dismounting Susie and, leaving the mare standing in the shade, walked up to knock on the door.

Dan opened the door several moments after she knocked—for the third time.

"Hey, Trix," he said, looking a bit tired. "What's up?"

"A lot! Is Mr. Maypenny here?"

"No, he's out. Wanna come in and wait? I think he might be back soon." As he opened the door wider to admit the visitor, and then shut the door again, he asked, "Anything I can do?"

"Actually, yes. I wanted to talk to you about something, anyhow."

"Sure. Siddown."

Trixie was tempted to sit in Mr. Maypenny's puffy and very comfortable-looking old armchair by the fireplace, but decided that it might not be nice for her to take the nice chair while Dan took one of the wooden dining chairs. So she took one of the wooden chairs as he did the same and said, "Gleeps, what happened to you? I thought you didn't have too many chores on weekdays."

"I don't. But right after I'd finished moving a fallen branch out of one of the paths, I remembered that I left my homework all over the table here." He knocked on the table they were sitting at. "Mr. Maypenny's forever telling me not to leave a mess and I didn't want him to have to remind me again, so I figured I'd tidy it all up before he saw it." _Have I __**always**__ made such dorky excuses or is this a new thing?_

Trixie chuckled and shook her head as Dan smiled sheepishly. "You're kind of weird," she told him. "But that's a good thing because I want your help with something that's kind of weird."

"Like what?"

"Like hiding out in the woods near the cabin to watch for a thief at three-thirty in the morning."

Dan's face dropped. "Say what?"

"Well, some psycho in a winter coat stole a box from Di and he dropped this while I was chasing him." She took the paper out of her pocket and showed it to Dan. "It doesn't say whether it's A.M. or P.M., and I don't want to miss anything so I thought I'd watch the cabin at both times. But I really don't want to sit out in the woods by myself at night, so I thought I'd ask you to keep me company."

"Lucky me." Dan hesitated a moment. "Why me?"

"Well, Honey said no and Diana hates the woods at night. Jim and Brian would do whatever it took to keep me from going and Mart… well, Mart _might_ agree but, then again, he might just end up talking me out of it and then going by himself."

"So basically, I was your only choice."

"Exactly. Although Jim and Brian were never really choices in the first place, and neither were Diana or Mart. I was gonna go with Honey, but like I said: she said no. So besides Honey, you're the best choice."

"Is this some weird, Trixie Belden-like type of roundabout flattery?"

"Well… maybe a little." She clasped her hands together pleadingly. "Please, Dan? It's not like you'd have far to go."

"Yeah, but…." Dan wracked his brain for a way to convince Trixie not to come at three A.M., because having the girl traipse through the woods in the middle of the night had certainly not been part of the plans for a birthday mystery.

He finally said, "It can be dangerous at night, Trixie. Maybe _I_ wouldn't have to go far, but you'd have to walk all by yourself through the Preserve."

Trixie frowned. "I could ride Susie."

Dan shook his head. "You know Uncle Bill would hear you in the stables. He'd never let you leave."

"Well, I walk through the woods all the time during the day," she tried to reason, "so, if I bring a bright lantern, it'll be practically the same thing at night, right?"

Another shake of the head. "No way. _I_ don't like the woods at night and I'm living smack in the middle of them. It's pitch dark and dead silent. Totally creepy."

Trixie, reminded of how spooky the Preserve was at night, was almost convinced to forget her stakeout. Almost. But not quite.

"This is really important! I can't back out," she said decisively. She added, "I'm doing it whether you're with me or not, but I'd really rather have some company. So are you with me or what?"

Dan sighed. "Fine. But I'll walk you here."

The almost-fourteen-year-old looked insulted. "Are you going all macho on me? If you walk me here, that means _you'll_ have to walk to my house by yourself!"

"No, I can ride Spartan to your house. Then we can double up on the way back to the cabin and, once we're finished looking for the psycho with the coat, we'll—wait a minute! Why the hell am I agreeing to this?"

"Because you're a good friend," Trixie beamed. She stood up. "Meet me at my house at about two forty-five. See ya!"

As she headed to the door, Dan jumped up from his chair and exclaimed, "No! Trix, wait! We can't—and you—it's totally—so we—and—and didn't you wanna see Mr. Maypenny about something?"

"Yeah, but since we're going to stake out the cabin, I don't think we have to tell him about the note." She smiled again. "Don't be late!"

"But Trixie—"

The door shut, leaving Dan alone to slap himself upside the head. He called himself a rather unpleasant name in a mutter before going to his room in the attic to grab his cell phone, which Regan had given him for emergency use only. Although the cabin wasn't on fire or anything (which was probably the kind of emergency that his uncle had meant), Dan thought that this was an emergency of _some_ kind, so he picked up his phone and dialed the Beldens' number.

"Pick up, pick up… pick up now," Dan chanted quietly as the phone rang.

"Hello?" Brian answered.

"Houston, we have a problem."

* * *

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	4. Chapter 4

**The Birthday Mystery**

_Disclaimer:_ I don't own Trixie Belden or any related characters or objects. Which is quite depressing.

_Author's Note:_ Sorry that this chapter is so short. I've been writing the story in one big piece before splitting it up into sections, so the chapters won't always come out even.

* * *

**Chapter Four**

Brian listened as Dan explained the slight issue that had arisen. Once the explanation was complete, the eldest Belden child sat down on the living room couch. Drumming his fingers on the arm of the sofa, he asked crisply, "Remind me why you _agreed_ to sit out in the woods with my sister at _three in the morning_?"

"I don't know! Whenever she asks me to do something, I just—" Dan sighed. "Diana was right. I'm such a dork."

Brian raised an eyebrow at the phone. "Diana called you a dork?"

"No, she just said that I'd do anything for—hey, that's not the point! The point is that I was an idiot and actually told Trixie I'd do the stakeout with her. I screwed up the mystery, didn't I?" he moaned.

After a moment of thought, Brian said slowly, "No… no, I don't think you did. We'll have to change things a little, but I think we can manage it. We'll take care of everything and call you when the new plan's worked out." He paused musingly. "Or maybe I _won't_ call you."

"Is this punishment for being a chowderhead? I mean, I totally deserve it, y'know, but it's still kinda mean."

"No, that's not it at all. I was just thinking that it might be better if I don't tell you. Then you won't have to _act_ surprised because you'll _be_ surprised."

"Oh. Okay."

"I'll talk to you later, Dan."

"Okay. Bye."

Brian pressed the 'end call' button and got up from the couch to hang up the phone. At this point, he greeted Mart and Jim, who had just entered the living room.

"That was Dan?" Jim asked, having heard the conclusion to Brian's phone conversation.

"Yes." He said to Mart, "Our dear little sister evidently sweet-talked him into staking out Mr. Maypenny's house with her. At three-thirty in the morning."

"What!" exclaimed Jim, even as Mart exploded into loud laughter. The redhead promptly turned to him and demanded with a glare, "What's so funny?"

Mart wiped away invisible tears of glee. "Ohhh, I can't wait to see that boy fall in love and get married," he chortled. "The little lady will have her own personal slave 'til death does them part!"

"Well, that won't be for a very long time," Jim said angrily. "He obviously won't be _nearly_ responsible enough for anything like that anytime soon! Aren't you upset _at all_ that he was going to help your sister sneak out into the woods in the middle of the night?"

Mart shrugged. "Not really. After all, it's partially our fault, isn't it?"

The other two both looked surprised at this. "What are you talking about?" Jim fumed.

"We would not be plagued by this predicament had we simply inscribed a diminutive '_post meridiem_' after the hour we described on that mysterious memorandum," Mart pointed out, "now would we?"

Brian chuckled. "He's right, Jim. You'd think at least _one_ of us brains would've thought to put 'P.M.' on the darn thing." He shook his head with a grin. "Well, let's go help Moms with dinner. Maybe we can convince her to let Mart and me stay up a little late—or get up very early. I think I have an idea."

And so the trio trooped into the kitchen to "offer their culinary services" to Mrs. Belden, who cheerfully accepted the offer.

"Dad's still outside with Bobby, right, Moms?" asked Brian as he took over the salad preparations from his mother.

"Yes," Mrs. Belden confirmed, going over to check on the roasting chicken. She peered out the kitchen window. "I think I see Honey."

"Jim, bring her in here before Bobby latches onto her," Brian said. "Honey should be in on this, too."

Jim nodded and went outside to direct his sister to the kitchen. When they entered the room, Honey said, "Hello, Mrs. Belden. Hi, guys. Thanks for having us over."

"You know you're welcome here anytime, Honey," replied Mrs. Belden. "Mart, if you were sincere about offering your culinary services, why don't you start tearing off some romaine leaves while Brian finishes with the iceberg?"

"Yes, ma'am," Mart said with a salute. "Consider the _Lactuca sativa_ torn. And sluiced."

"Thank you."

"What can we do?" Jim asked Mrs. Belden.

"Yes, we'd love to help," Honey agreed.

"Well, aside from the chicken, I thought I'd make things easy for myself," said Mrs. Belden. "I was going to use some rotini I cooked yesterday and make a pasta salad."

"We can do that," volunteered Jim.

"It sounds fun," agreed Honey. "We'll take care of it, Mrs. Belden. You can go relax if you want."

"Don't go too far, Moms," Brian said. "We have to talk to you about something."

"Alright." Mrs. Belden sat down on a stool at the counter and asked, "Is this something to do with the mystery?"

Brian nodded. "You remember the note we wrote for the 'thief' to let Trixie pick up? Well, we didn't specify A.M. or P.M. on it, so now Trixie doesn't know which it is. And she wants to stake out Mr. Maypenny's house at three in the morning so that she won't miss anything."

"Oh, good heavens," sighed Mrs. Belden.

"I tried to talk her out of it," Honey piped up, "and told her I wouldn't go with her, but I don't think she listened to me."

"She didn't," Mart assured her. "So she went to Dan and talked _him_ into staking out with her."

"She did?" exclaimed Honey. She shook her head. "I knew she was planning something. But why would Dan—?"

"The chap is a veritable chump," was Mart's grinning explanation.

Jim looked at Brian. "You said that you had a plan, right?"

"Right," nodded Brian. He added to Mrs. Belden, "But Mart and I will need your and Dad's permission. And Jim and Honey will need Miss Trask's permission since their parents are away. And Dan will need Regan's or Mr. Maypenny's permission…"

"Jeepers, Brian, what are we going to do?" Honey asked, wide-eyed at how much permission would need to be distributed in order to execute this plan of his.

"First of all, we're going to need to stay up really late. Or, actually, get up very early."

* * *

_Thanks for reading!_


	5. Chapter 5

**The Birthday Mystery**

_Disclaimer:_ I do not own Trixie Belden or any related characters or objects. If I did, trust me: I'd tell you all about it in great detail and with a high degree of bragging involved.

_Author's Note:_ This chapter is around four hundred words longer than the last, so I guess that's an improvement….

**Chapter Five**

_Saturday, April 24 (barely)_

At two-forty (A.M.), Trixie slapped off her alarm clock tiredly. Quietly bemoaning the lengths she was going to for a cardboard box, she slid out of bed and got dressed, putting the mysterious note and her copy of the house-keys in her pocket. Once she'd stuffed a couple of pillows under her bedcovers as all the movies and books required, she slowly twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open into the hallway. She looked up and down the hall stealthily before tiptoeing out of her room and shutting the door softly behind her.

Trixie had almost made it to the stairs when she heard a door open. She was motionless, frozen in her place, as the door shut and a flashlight's beam shone onto her. Dreading the explanation she owed her captor, the blonde swallowed hard before slowly turning around to see who had foiled her plans.

"And where, pray tell, are you off to at this blasphemous hour of this unappealingly sinister night?"

She sighed and whispered, "Can't you even drop the dictionary at this 'blasphemous hour'?"

"I had that one all planned out. With all the mysteries you get into, chances were you'd sneak out sooner or later. _Now_ I'll drop the dictionary."

"Could you drop the flashlight, too? You're blinding me."

Mart lowered the aim of the flashlight and walked up to his sister. "What's going on? Does this have something to do with that box that got stolen from Di?"

"Yeah." She pulled the note out of her pocket and said, "The thief dropped this."

Mart took the paper and looked at it with his flashlight. "It doesn't say that it's three in the morning. It's probably in the afternoon. When you tell somebody to meet you at the clubhouse at three, you don't have to say 'three P.M.'. They already know."

Frowning, Trixie conceded, "Yeah, I guess so. But this is a criminal we're talking about. You think he's going to say, 'meet me for our evil meeting at three P.M., in broad daylight'?" She shook her head. "Criminals do stuff at night."

Her almost-twin admitted this point. He tapped at the paper. "And I suppose you think this evil meeting will take place at Mr. Maypenny's place?"

"Outside it," Trixie nodded, taking back the note. "Mr. Maypenny wouldn't let bad guys inside his house."

"Not willingly, at least." Mart paused. "Wait here. I'll come with you."

Trixie almost yelled, "What!" but managed to keep her voice down to a loud whisper as she demanded, "What? But if you come, it'll be more likely that the bad guys will see us!"

"Tough tiddlies, sister. You aren't going by yourself."

"I'm _not_ going by myself!" She clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide.

Mart frowned. "You didn't talk poor Honey into going with you, did you?"

Trixie shook her head.

"Dan, then?"

She nodded.

"Huh. Well, he's generally your second pick if Honey fails you. I'll be right back."

Trixie shot out an arm to grab his elbow. "Wait. You might wake up Brian this time."

Mart was tempted to reassure her that Brian was certainly not about to spoil this mission, then decided that Brian _was_ generally a light sleeper and would likely wake up if this were a real situation. Silently bemoaning the lengths he was going to for an artificial mystery, he murmured, "I guess so. Let's grab our jackets and go."

_You'd better appreciate this, sister mine. Not only am I accompanying you into the Preserve in the middle of the night to spy on evil meetings, but I am doing so in my pajamas! I expect one heck of a birthday present from you next month._

Wearing their Bob-White jackets, they walked out the door. Trixie locked it shut as Mart asked, "So Danny-boy was going to let you hoof it all the way to Mr. Maypenny's cabin in the dark by yourself?"

"No." They went to the back of the house, where Trixie stopped, making Mart do the same. "He said he'd come on Spartan so we could ride there together." She gave him an icy look. "I don't know what we're gonna do now that _you're_ here."

"Oh, that's cold, Trixie. Here I am, ready and willing to help you, and you're being so cruel to me."

Trixie poked her tongue out at him and he returned the favor. Then, by mutual agreement, they waited in silence until a soft sound came from the woods, accompanied by a dim light. Mart immediately focused the flashlight in the direction of the noise.

The dim light grew brighter as the sound became louder, and soon the shape of a figure on a horse became visible. This figure stopped riding at the edge of the woods and dismounted, dropping the animal's reins. Dan (for, naturally, that's who it was) jogged up to the shining beam of Mart's flashlight as he carried his own, slightly less powerful electric lamp.

When they were within talking distance, Dan stopped and stared at Mart. "The hell are you here for?"

Mart shook his head, lamenting that neither of his companions seemed particularly fond of him that night. "I'm here for the same reason as you, Danno. And since we do have an evil meeting to spy on, let's get going, shall we?"

Just as the trio was about to set off for Mr. Maypenny's cabin, a rustling noise distracted them and they turned to look at the hill that led up to the Wheelers' property. There, running down the hill, was Honey Wheeler herself, who suddenly stopped running when she realized that three people were watching her.

Mouth shaped like an O, she exclaimed, "Trixie—what are Mart and Dan doing here?"

"They're coming with me to stake out the cabin," the Belden girl admitted. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Well, I—I felt so bad about you going out all by yourself that I decided to come with you." She looked at the boys. "But I guess I shouldn't have been worried, after all."

Dan slapped his forehead with his lantern-less hand and muttered something that was not very polite about this entire situation, and this expression made Mart smack Dan's forehead as well.

"Don't talk like that: you're in decent company," Mart admonished.

Dan glared. "It's almost three in the morning and you're talkin' 'bout decent company? What are we gonna do _now_? Spartan couldn't carry three people and no way is he carrying four!"

Mart grinned broadly. It was far too large a smile to be indicative of friendly thoughts, so the other three looked at him warily.

"Um, Mart?" Honey asked. "What are you thinking?"

"I was thinking that it's Trixie and Dan's fault we're going anywhere at all, so you and I can ride while they walk."

"Nobody asked you to come," Trixie glared.

"Yeah," Dan agreed.

Mart smirked. "Ah, but if we don't come, we'll alert the folks of your midnight mission. You're stuck with us now, little sister." He ushered a rather guilty-looking Honey over to Spartan.

Dan, following on their heels as Trixie (somewhat sulkily) trailed behind, grabbed Mart's shoulder as they approached the horse. As they continued walking, he hissed, "If Trixie or I trip over a branch in the dark and crack our skulls, I'm gonna deck you. And I'll really, sincerely enjoy it."

"Tut, tut, and tsk, Daniel!" Mart admonished. "Violence is never the answer!"

"That depends on what the _question_ is." And with that comeback, Dan released Mart's shoulder and waited for Trixie to catch up.

Trixie watched sourly as Honey mounted Spartan and Mart climbed on behind.

"Well," Mart remarked in a chipper tone. "This is exciting, isn't it?"

"Shut up," Trixie and Dan chorused darkly.

The blond boy grinned as he saw the murderous looks on the faces of his sister and friend. He hadn't been sure that it would be worth it to get up in the middle of the night to make up for Dan's faux pas, but seeing those faces? Totally worth it.

Mart started up a conversation with Honey; Trixie, not in the mood to talk to her brother at the moment, whispered to Dan as they started their journey, "You think we could ditch 'em? Just Mart, I mean. I still like Honey."

Dan smirked. "I'd be all for it, Trix, but I don't see how we could ditch Mart without losing Honey and my horse in the process. Or, y'know, being arrested for something stupid like manslaughter."

"He's not a man, he's a dweeb," retorted Trixie. "Unless there's such a thing as dweeb-slaughter, I think we can get away with it."

Dan couldn't help but laugh. "I knew I was friends with you for a reason. Smart, smart," he praised, shaking his head approvingly.

Trixie sighed and paused. "So we're stuck with all of them, huh? Honey, Spartan, _and_ the other guy?"

"Yep."

She sighed again.

* * *

_Thanks for reading!_


	6. Chapter 6

**The Birthday Mystery**

_Disclaimer:_ For ownership of these characters I have often hoped/Alas and anon, I must say Nope!/And so I apologize for this poem/And sadly declare "no, I don't own 'em".

_Author's Note:_ I also apologize for this chapter. From this point on, I'm not as fond of this story as I was. Hopefully, however, you'll like it more than I do, so I'll keep posting and you can decide for yourself. Starting with:

**Chapter Six**

After what seemed to Trixie and Dan like a very long time, Mr. Maypenny's cabin came into view. Dan helped Honey down from Spartan's back, flatly told Mart to get off, and led the horse into the barn as the other three settled down behind a clump of bushes that concealed them while allowing them a decent view of the cabin and its surroundings.

Soon, Trixie muttered, "He's taking an awful long time just to put Spartan in his stall."

Mart and Honey agreed quickly, and Honey said, "Maybe I'll go and make sure he's okay."

"Alright," Mart conceded, "but scream if you need help."

Honey nodded. She got up and walked over to the barn. Almost as soon as she disappeared inside the structure, she had to clamp her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming prematurely.

Once she'd calmed herself slightly, she continued staring at Jim, who was astride Spartan, and asked in a slightly screechy whisper, "Oh my gosh, your nose! What happened?"

Dan, standing by Spartan, raised his hand. "I happened. He startled me."

"Be that as it may," Jim said quickly, wiggling his bloodied nose uncomfortably, "mysterious figure version two-point-O should get going. Ready to scream?"

Honey nodded.

"Then fire at will." Jim made sure he had a firm grip on his flashlight, in one hand, and the reins, in the other hand, before urging Spartan to canter out of the barn.

In response to this, Honey closed her eyes and screamed as loud as she could. Dan cringed and covered his ears, hoping that Spartan wouldn't be spooked and throw Jim. Fortunately, the horse seemed to have become accustomed to strange goings-on by this point, and cantered along with an air of "well, these things happen".

Meanwhile, Trixie and Mart, already a bit on edge in the dark wooded area, were put on red alert when Spartan suddenly burst out of the barn, followed by the sound of a scream. The siblings darted out of their hiding place, immediately running in the direction of the yell.

"Honey!" Trixie exclaimed, grabbing Honey by the shoulders as if to be certain that the Wheeler girl was indeed there and in one piece. "Are you okay?"

"What happened?" Mart demanded urgently, looking around. "Was that the only guy—the one who rode off on your horse?" he asked Dan.

"Think so," Dan nodded. "He just grabbed the reins and took off."

Honey offered a weak smile. "But not before getting a punch in the nose."

Mart's mouth dropped as he asked Dan, "You—?"

"Hey, he's a horse thief," Dan reminded before Mart started asking if Jim was alright. "Had it coming. Seriously, though, he practically jumped on me and my natural reaction was to pop him one."

Trixie threw her hands into the air. "Gleeps! First Di's box, now Dan's horse!"

"What about Daniel's horse?"

The Bob-Whites turned to look at the barn entrance, where Mr. Maypenny stood, lantern in hand and jacket thrown on over his pajamas. Nobody answered him, as all four teens had instead opted to glance uneasily at one another.

"What in blazes is going on here? Shouldn't you three be at home?" he asked the Beldens and Honey. "And you, Daniel, should be sleeping, too. Spring break or no spring break, you kids shouldn't be out at this time of night."

Trixie and Mart opened their mouths to offer something vaguely reminiscent of an explanation, but they were cut off by a thud from Spartan's stall. Mr. Maypenny approached the stall as the youths watched. He opened the stall door—revealing Brian Belden sitting with Diana's stolen box within the horse's space.

Brian looked down at the box in his lap, looked up at his sister, and got to his feet. "Trixie, this isn't what it looks like," he said slowly.

After everyone had stared at Brian for a while, Dan shifted his gaze to Trixie and asked, "Uh, what _does_ it look like?" This earned his arm a light swat from Honey's hand.

"It looks like Brian stole Di's box," the schoolgirl shamus replied quietly. Then she frowned, knitting her brows, as she said, "But I could've sworn that the thief was smaller. And darker—" She snapped her head around to face the smallest, darkest Bob-White male. "Dan!" Her eyes flicked back and forth between her eldest brother and the Mangan boy. "Is this some kind of lame joke?"

"Trix, it's no joke!" Dan shot back. "Do you really think I stole—I couldn't've! If I had, why would I agree to help you stake me out tonight?"

Trixie looked slightly ashamed and mumbled an apology. Then she glared around and folded her arms. "But something screwy's going on here. And I'm going to find out what!"

"Well, I certainly hope so, Trixie, because I could do with some enlightenment," Mr. Maypenny said. "Starting with someone telling me what makes my barn so gosh-darn popular for a midnight rendezvous."

Honey glanced at her watch but decided not to tell the old man that it was actually just past three-thirty A.M., because she was a good girl and not prone to smart-alecky remarks. Mart, on the other hand, looked at Honey's watch and matter-of-factly reported the time.

"Well," Mr. Maypenny sighed. "Twelve or three, come in the house and we'll figure out what's going on."

"For starters, Spartan was horse-napped," Trixie stated as everybody headed out of the barn.

"Horse-napped!" echoed Mr. Maypenny. He shook his head. "Well, it's too dangerous to attempt a rescue mission in the dark. Daniel and I will start looking in the morning—_later_ in the morning," he added, cutting off any chance Mart had at another well-intentioned but annoyingly precise remark.

The five Bob-Whites trooped into Mr. Maypenny's cabin and Brian put the box down on the table in the kitchen/dining room/living room area, where they all gathered.

"So is it Di's box?" Trixie asked Brian. "It sure looks like it is."

He shrugged. "It probably is. All I know is, somebody called my cell phone at some ridiculous hour in the night and said he'd give back my friend's box if I met him in Mr. Maypenny's barn at three-thirty in the morning. You made it sound like this box was awfully important to Di, so I figured I'd try to get it back for her."

Mart laughed and slapped his brother on the back. "My eminently respectable brother has forgone the police and has transformed into a secret agent!"

"Mart," Brian said kindly, patting the boy on his crew-cut, "it's far too early in the morning for _anybody_ to be a secret agent. Even James Bond has to sleep sometime."

"Who called you?" Trixie asked quickly. "Did you see his number? How did he know your number? What did he sound—"

"Trixie, slow down!" exclaimed Brian. "I don't know who it was, and I can't remember the number, okay? I was half asleep."

Mr. Maypenny cleared his throat loudly. "Would any of you kids care to take pity on an old man and tell him what on earth is going on?"

Brian turned to Trixie. So did Honey, Mart, and Dan.

"_You_ tell him."

* * *

Jim, standing in the dark woods with Spartan, waited patiently until he saw the cabin door open and Mr. Maypenny come out, followed by the Belden kids and Honey. Once they and the lights they were carrying had disappeared into the Preserve, the redhead turned his flashlight back on and led Spartan back to the barn. He stabled the horse, stroking the animal's nose a couple of times.

"Poor fella. You must be confused."

Spartan, looking thoroughly bored, blinked placidly. Jim patted the horse one more time before leaving the barn and heading to the cabin, where he knocked on the door. A moment later, Dan opened the door.

"Oh, hey, you're back," Dan greeted him, opening the door wider to admit his friend.

"And so is Spartan. I put him in his stable."

"Thanks," he grinned. "I was kinda wondering when I'd get him back. Sorry about your nose, by the way. Want to clean it up a little?"

"That sounds good," agreed Jim, heading over to the kitchen sink. "I think I got most of the blood off with a couple of tissues."

As Jim dampened a paper towel, Dan sat at the table and said, "Well, 'least you know not to sneak up on me like that again."

"Who was sneaking?" Jim protested, wiping his nose.

"Well, whatever. So, aside from the nose thing, how did everything else go?"

"Brian said that he wouldn't tell us about the last part of his new plan until later today. But as far as I know, everything went off like clockwork," the older boy proclaimed.

"Good."

Jim finished cleaning his injury, tossed out the towel, and dried his face. "I'd better get going. As a rule, I like to get to bed before sunrise."

"Sounds like a plan to me. Speaking of, make sure Brian fills us in on the plan soon, okay? I'd kinda like to know what's going on with Brian's mysterious phone calls and you stealing my horse, y'know."

"Sure thing. Brian said he'd tell us the rest of the plan at about nine-thirty this morning, at the Beldens'. We'll see you then."

"Yeah, see ya. Unless you wanted company walking through the _scaaaary_ woods," he offered, half teasing and half serious.

"Don't be ridiculous," Jim retorted with a lopsided grin as he headed for the door. "Then _you'd_ have to walk back here by yourself, city boy."

Dan shuddered. "Right." Standing up, he smiled and waved, "Bye. Have fun!"

Jim chuckled as he opened the door and turned on his flashlight. "Chicken," he accused good-naturedly.

Dan stretched out his hands and shrugged, an "oh, well" expression on his face.

* * *

_As you may have noticed, I referred to Jim as being older than Dan. As far as I can recall, none of the Trixie Belden authors seemed able to agree on Dan's age, so I just made him the same age as Mart._

_As always, thanks for reading!_


	7. Chapter 7

**The Birthday Mystery**

_Disclaimer_: Still don't own anything to do with this.

_Note_: Thanks for waiting the extra week! In spite of the extra time I took, I'm afraid this still turned out to be a short chapter. However, please enjoy:

**Chapter Seven**

Later that morning, after getting a deplorably little amount of sleep, Trixie, Mart, and Brian pretended to be reasonably chipper at the breakfast table. While Brian and Trixie were doing the dishes, he suggested that she return the box to Diana.

"Why me?"

"Because I'm the old man of the club. And as an old man, I got far too little sleep to function properly." He handed a wet cereal bowl to her. "So, young'un, you can trot on over to Di's after you finish drying."

Trixie wrinkled her nose as she took the bowl. "Okay, fine. But only on one condition…"

Brian agreed to stop talking like Mart and Trixie agreed to deliver the box.

* * *

Diana squealed in delight when she opened the door and saw Trixie standing there with the missing box. "You really _did_ find it! Thanks for bringing it over and everything!"

Trixie smiled back and nodded. "Actually, Brian found it," she admitted. "I just carried it here." As she held out the cardboard cube, she added, "At least it's nice and light."

The Lynch girl's face froze. "Light?" she echoed. With a nervous laugh, she said, "It isn't… it isn't supposed to be light."

After both girls took a moment to stare at the box, Diana took it and hurried up to her room. Trixie closed the front door and followed. When Diana glanced at her but didn't close her bedroom door, the young detective assumed that that meant her friend didn't mind if she watched.

Diana put the box on her bed and ripped off the masking tape sealing it shut before peering inside. Almost immediately, she moaned, "It _is_ gone," and flopped melancholically onto her bed, next to the box.

Trixie ventured forward from the doorway and took a peek inside the box. She asked, "What's that paper?"

The brunette shot up. "What paper?" She looked into the box again and pulled out a piece of folded notebook paper. Once she'd read it through a couple of times, Diana yelped. "What the heck! Who's gonna get THIS?" she seethed, making a mental note to smack Mart, the self-proclaimed expert clue-maker, upside the head.

"Let me see," Trixie requested, holding out a hand. Diana passed the note to her and she read it to herself:

_It's half dead and half alive,_

_A paradox in scientists' eyes,_

_Take the 'ö' and add a 'y',_

_'Now what am I?' Kitty cried_

_(6) (10) L (14) (8) O (5)_

"I get it!" Trixie exclaimed.

Diana stared at her blankly. "You do?"

"Yeah! It's some physics thing!" She explained, "Mart was reading some physics book last month and he kept harping on about it. It's some paradox thing with somebody-or-other's cat."

Now Diana frowned. "…Huh? What's a 'parabox'?"

"Brian explained a couple of para_dox_es to me. For a time paradox, let's say you have a time machine. So you go back in time and shoot your parents—"

"I'd never do that!" Diana interjected.

Trixie glared mildly at her. "I know you wouldn't, Di. This is just an example. And how would you get a time machine, in the first place? Don't interrupt me." She cleared her throat, ready to resume her example:

"So you go back in time and shoot your parents dead before you were born. That means you were never born. But if you were never born, how could you be alive to go back in time and shoot them in the first place?"

Diana furrowed her brows and frowned in thought. Eventually, she sighed. "I don't get it," she admitted. "And now my head hurts."

"That's what a paradox is _supposed_ to do."

"Make my head hurt?" Diana asked confusedly.

Trixie nodded.

"Oh… then does that mean I get it, after all?"

"Sort of."

"Oh." She sighed again. "Now I'm even more confused."

"Well, I'm not. Can I use your computer?"

"I guess so. What for?"

Trixie went over to Diana's computer desk and sat down. As she got onto the internet, she said, "I'm going to do a search for the name of that cat paradox. I know it's 'so-and-so's cat', but I can't remember so-and-so's name." She accordingly typed 'cat paradox' into the search engine and looked at the results.

"There it is," Trixie declared cheerfully. "Schrödinger's cat." She took the notepad and pencil on her host's desk and scribbled down the name before numbering each letter, not counting the apostrophe.

"Let's see, then…"

Diana got up from her bed and peeked over Trixie's shoulder.

"It says to 'take an _ö_ and add a _y_'," she mumbled, replacing the _ö_ with a _y_. "So 6 equals _D_, 10 equals _E_, _L_'s already there, 14 is _A_, 8 is _N_, _O_, and 5 is _Y_. Delanoy!" She hit the notepad with the eraser end of the pencil in triumph.

"Wow," Diana said, looking quite impressed. "I wish I were smart."

"You are smart, Di. You just don't have annoying older brothers to lecture you about paradoxes." She signed off of the computer and ripped off the page of the notepad she'd been using. Standing up, she said, "Come on. We'll go see Tom and on the way I'll explain the cat paradox to you."

* * *

Meanwhile, as soon as Trixie had left to return Diana's box, a meeting among the rest of the Bob-Whites convened in the Beldens' living room. Everybody but the Beldens had slept in and hadn't eaten breakfast. Thus, they (and Mart, who was always hungry) grabbed something from the kitchen to nibble on and sat down, except for Brian, who remained standing.

"So what's up next for the mystery?" Jim asked.

Brian tossed a pen from hand to hand for a moment. He looked around at the other Bob-Whites, scratched at his head with the capped end of the pen, and muttered something about 'getting through this alive'. In a louder voice, he announced, "We're giving up the mystery."

Mart dropped the banana he'd been munching on.

"What?" Honey exclaimed.

"You've got to be kidding," Jim protested.

Dan raised his eyebrows incredulously. "_That's_ the plan? Dude, I thought you said you'd figured out how to cover up my sorry ass for my screw-up."

"I did. Let me explain…."

* * *

_Thanks for reading!_


	8. Chapter 8

**The Birthday Mystery**

_Disclaimer_: Still don't own 'em.

_Note_: So here is Chapter Eight, a day early because I might not have time to post it tomorrow. (Some of you may not have gotten an update alert for the previous chapter because I replaced the Author's Note with Chapter Seven, and that doesn't seem to count as a story update around here.) Anyway, on with:

**Chapter Eight**

"I don't think I like paradoxes," Diana decided. "First you want me to shoot my parents dead, and now you want me to poison a cat!"

"_Maybe_ poison a cat," Trixie corrected. "If the poison bottle doesn't break, the cat is safe."

"Still. Do all paradoxes end with something dying?"

Trixie paused in thought. "All the ones that Brian's told me about do…." She shrugged. "Anyway, paradoxes are kind of like mysteries, so—"

She was cut off by Diana's cell phone ringing. The girls, about halfway to Manor House, stopped walking while she checked the caller ID. "It's your house phone," Diana said. Trixie nodded as the brunette accepted the call.

"Hey, Di, it's me."

"Hi, Honey," Diana greeted. She covered the speaker for a moment while telling Trixie to walk on ahead. "I'll catch up," she said. When Trixie started off again, Diana followed her at a slower pace and asked into the phone, "What's up?"

"We're sort of cancelling the mystery?"

"What? What do you mean 'sort of'? Why?"

"Well," Honey replied, "Brian thinks that, after Dan sort of accidentally derailed the mystery—"

"Don't sugarcoat!" Dan's voice came from somewhere near Honey. He called into the phone, "I botched it!"

"This is my phone call and I'll phrase it how I want, Dan Mangan," Honey scolded. "Anyway, Di, Brian thought it would be good if we let Trixie figure out that this is a fake mystery, since she's already suspicious. Then we'll start a new mystery that will really take her by surprise."

"Okay. What do you want me to do with Trixie? We're already on our way to see Tom."

"Really? Then she got Mart's riddle?"

"Yeah," Diana virtually spat. "And tell Mart that his stupid poem with that stupid cat is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. What the heck kind of a clue was that?"

After a rather long pause, Honey said awkwardly, "Okay, I'll tell him. Anyhow, just make it really obvious to Trixie that this is a phony mystery. Don't actually _say_ it's fake, but make it so obvious that she can't help but figure it out. Um… have I been making sense? I'm still a little sleepy."

"Perfectly perfect sense. Should we still go to see Tom?"

"Yes. It's still part of the old mystery, so go ahead. Like I said, just make it obvious that it _is_ fake so that we can take her off guard with the new mystery. We're starting to plan out the new mystery here at the Beldens', because the clubhouse fan is still broken and Mart wanted access to 'copious quantities of comestibles'."

"_Now_ you're not making sense."

"He wanted lots and lots of food," translated Honey.

"Oh, okay," Diana nodded, even though she knew her friend couldn't see her. "Just let me know when we're starting Brian's new mystery so that I don't make _that_ one seem fake."

"Right. See you later."

"Yup. Bye."

* * *

As soon as Honey hung up, Brian said, "I take it Diana's going to handle it?"

"Yes." She turned to the other Belden boy. "And she told me to tell you that she hates your clue, Mart. With a passion. Trixie figured it out, though."

"Well, it's not nice of Di to hate my brilliant clue, but… ha! Told you she'd get it," Mart crowed, gloating in Jim's general direction.

Jim smiled and shrugged. "I don't know why I ever doubted it." He tapped his notebook with the pen that Brian had given him. "Now let's focus. That means putting away all edibles. Mart."

"It's stimulation for the cerebrum," Mart argued. "Besides, I already lost a banana less than an hour ago. Don't take away my granola," he pleaded.

"_Your_ granola?" Dan cut in with a glare. "That was _my_ granola until you swiped it from me."

"Well, you weren't eating it."

Dan rolled his eyes and Jim once again insisted that everyone focus on the mystery at hand.

* * *

"So what was Honey calling abou—"

"Nothing!" Diana interrupted abruptly. She smiled anxiously. "Nope, nothing at—the box! Yes. She was asking if you'd returned the box."

Trixie raised an eyebrow. "Okaaay…" she said slowly. "Are you okay?"

"Yup! Never better!"

Now Trixie's frown deepened. "You're acting kind of weird, Di."

"Me? Weird?" Diana laughed.

"Well," mused Trixie, "maybe not 'kind of' weird." She shot a suspicious glance in her strange friend's direction. "_Really_ weird is more like it. What's going—"

"Nothing! Oh, look, there's Tom!"

Trixie watched in bemusement as Diana trotted forward, calling a greeting to the Wheelers' chauffeur. She shook her head, deciding that the brunette was probably just upset that the missing object was still missing. Diana's worry was probably just manifesting itself as… extreme weirdness. Yeah. Right.

After putting Diana's odd behavior on the back burner for the time being, Trixie tried to focus on the matter at hand. As soon as the usual exchange of "good morning" had been accomplished, she held out the notepaper and asked, "Tom, what do you know about Schrödinger's cat?"

"Whose cat?" Tom Delanoy asked, taking the paper she offered him. He raised his eyebrows briefly before smiling and handing the paper back to the investigator. "I'm afraid I'm not really up on my paradoxes, Trixie."

Diana nodded in fervent agreement. "Isn't it an awful clue?" She was determined to stay angry enough over the clue that she would be able to confront Mart about it later and really chew his head off.

Trixie remarked, "I've been thinking that it actually seems like something Mart would—" She froze. "Di," she whirled on her friend urgently, "you wouldn't lie to me would you?"

"Um… no?" guessed Diana.

"Then let's go talk," Trixie said.

"But what about Tom?"

"Yes, what about Tom?" agreed the chauffeur. He shot a quizzical glance at Diana; the Bob-Whites had told him that Trixie would be confronting him about a clue today, but they hadn't told him exactly what was supposed to happen.

Diana made a helpless gesture as Trixie dragged her off by the elbow, and the blonde called back, "Sorry for pestering you! I think maybe we shouldn't have even been bothering you in the first place!"

Tom scratched his head with a befuddled smile on his face. "I suppose I'm too young to shake my head and grumble about kids, but I'll do it anyway." And so he shook his head and sighed in what he felt was a properly exasperated tone: "Kids!"

* * *

It was just about lunchtime when Trixie and Diana stormed into the Belden kitchen.

Well, Trixie stormed. Diana drizzled.

Mrs. Belden looked up from her meal preparations in surprise. "Hello, Diana. Trixie, dear, I think I've asked you about a thousand times not to slam the door."

"Sorry, Moms," Trixie said. "Where are they?"

"Where are who?"

"The Bob-Whites."

"Oh, yes," nodded Mrs. Belden. She put a few more sandwiches on a plate. "They went over to Manor House. They told me to tell you to join them for a picnic."

Diana grinned and clapped her hands. "Ooh, that sounds fun! I—"

"Thanks, Moms," Trixie said, once again seizing her friend's elbow. "See you later!"

"Bye, Mrs. Belden," Diana said over her shoulder as she was pulled away. She added to Trixie as they hustled out the door, "You know, I _could_ try walking if you got tired of hauling me around!"

Mrs. Belden called, "Don't slam the—"

_Slam!_

Now it was Mrs. Belden's turn to sigh and shake her head. "A thousand and one."

* * *

_I sort of stole (read: did steal) the storm/drizzle line from an old movie called __The Road to Morocco__. One character says, "We must storm the place," and another replies, "You storm—I'll stay over here and drizzle."_

_Thanks for reading!_


	9. Chapter 9

**The Birthday Mystery**

_Disclaimer_: Nothing but the plot belongs to me.

_Note_: This chapter marks the transfer of focus from the Bob-Whites and their planning to Trixie and her solving. This 'Part Two' probably won't be as long as 'Part One' was, but I really can't say for sure yet. Please enjoy the longest chapter yet:

**Chapter Nine**

"Gleeps, Di, it was nice of all of you to try to give me a mystery," Trixie commented as they walked to Manor House. "It was a lot of fun while it lasted."

"How long did you suspect it was a fake, though?" asked Diana, half jogging to keep up with the shorter girl's brisk pace.

Trixie hummed briefly in thought. "I guess I first started to _really_ get suspicious in Mr. Maypenny's barn last night. Oh! That reminds me: what happened to poor Spartan after Jim 'stole' him?"

"Jim put him right back after you and Mart and Honey all went home."

"Oh. And what was going to happen if…." Trixie paused.

"…if I hadn't blown our cover?" Diana suggested.

The blonde nodded sheepishly.

"Um, I don't know, actually. We figured we'd see how you reacted to things and plan the mystery according to that."

Trixie looked mildly shocked. "You mean Jim and Brian didn't insist on plotting every last detail at the start?"

Diana grinned. "Actually, it was Brian's idea to do it all piecemeal."

Now Trixie stopped dead in her tracks. "You're kidding!"

Still grinning, Diana giggled and shook her head.

Trixie shook her own head in bewilderment. "Well, at least I still have a mystery then. I'll call this case, 'Who Mind-Wiped Brian Belden?' Oh, there they are!" she exclaimed, waving to the Bob-Whites hanging around on the Manor House porch.

"You guys have no idea how happy we are to see you!" Dan called to Trixie and Diana as they stood at the bottom of the porch steps. "We've been having to take turns hidin' the picnic basket from the Human Vacuum over here," he said, jerking a thumb at Mart.

Honey nodded, holding the basket with both hands. "Yes, and he still managed to eat one and a half cookies."

Diana cocked her head to one side and Trixie asked, "One and a _half_?"

Jim folded his arms over his chest, grinning, "He was gloating so much over stealing two cookies that he almost choked and had to spit some out."

"Hey, those cookies were rightfully mine," Mart said as the group set out for a picnic spot by the Wheelers' lake. "You sadists had no right to withhold them from me."

Brian purposefully positioned himself between Mart and Honey (and the basket), just in case his brother felt the need to lay claim to any more food before they reached their destination. Trixie walked on Honey's other side and held the basket handle with one hand, so the two girls could carry the rather heavy container between them.

"So," Trixie began, "whose idea was it to give me a mystery?"

The others suddenly stopped walking. Honey was naturally included in this group, and a near-catastrophe occurred when she halted as Trixie kept going. Fortunately, both girls had a strong grip on the handle, so when Honey stopped, the basket stopped and Trixie eventually stopped, as well.

Brian smiled awkwardly. "Uh, what are you talking about?"

Trixie put her free hand on her hip. "You know what I'm talking about and I _know_ you know what I'm talking about, so start talking!" She couldn't help but grin as everybody (except for Diana) stared at her with wide eyes, slack jaws, or generally humorous expressions.

Diana volunteered to most of the BWGs, "I-I kinda gave it away. Sorry."

There was a collective sigh, and Jim eventually stated, "It was Honey's idea, I think. Most of us were having a meeting to decide what to give you and Honey said that it was too bad we couldn't give you a mystery for your birthday. Then we all just looked at each other and it clicked: 'why _don't_ we give her a mystery?'" He shrugged.

A couple of moments passed as the former mystery-writers mourned the loss of their gift to Trixie.

"Crap, that was a bust," muttered Dan through a sigh. He started walking again, taking the lead as the others followed.

"It wasn't a bust," Trixie argued as they walked on. "It was great! It's definitely the best present I've ever gotten." She beamed. "Mart, I even think that clue you wrote was actually pretty good."

Mart grinned. "Thank you, sister mine, for that backhanded compliment." He leaned back to whisper something to Diana, who was walking with Jim behind Trixie, Honey, Brian, and Mart.

Diana nodded quickly, then frowned, and then outright glared at the boy with the crew-cut. "That clue—it was so obvious it was written by you! Why do you always have to be so smug just because you know about weird stuff like paradoxes and everything? It makes me so mad I could spit, and sometimes I wish I _could_ spit so I could do it at your shoe or—or something!"

She stormed past the rest of the Bob-Whites, taking over the lead from Dan as she marched onward. Trixie and Honey looked at each other for just a moment before hurrying to catch up with Diana. They could hear Mart behind them, saying to the other boys, "Wow, she sure got mad, didn't she?"

Dan's voice, dripping with sarcasm, returned, "No—don't you recognize joy when you see it?"

Trixie and Honey walked alongside Diana, and Honey asked, "What's the matter? What happened?"

Diana stomped silently for several moments, then fumed, "He just really makes me _so mad_ sometimes!" She looked at Trixie without slowing her pace as she asked, "How do you manage to _live_ with him day and night for almost fourteen years?"

"Gleeps, Di, he annoys me, too, sometimes. The way to keep from exploding is to make sure that you annoy him back once in a while. Or, better yet, all the time." She furrowed her brow. "What did he say to you to make you blow up like that? He doesn't usually say stuff that makes him deserve to have his head bitten off."

The Lynch girl shook her head and waved her hands around for a moment. "It doesn't matter. I'll just never speak to That Person again until his inflated head has deflated down to a normal size." She tossed her own normal-sized head indignantly, flipping her black locks over her shoulders in the process.

Honey slowed down, forcing Trixie to do the same and allowing Diana to get a bit ahead of them. She whispered to the blonde, "We should probably let her be for a while. She'll tell us what happened when she wants to."

Trixie nodded. "I guess you're right. But I'd sure like to know what got her so worked up."

Throughout the picnic, Trixie occasionally caught Diana looking at Mart like she wanted to talk to him. Whenever Diana noticed that somebody was watching her, however, the dark-haired girl quickly turned her head away and studiously ignored the boy.

Jim eventually moved over to sit next to Trixie and asked, "So did you force her into telling you why she's so mad at Mart?"

Trixie shook her head. "Honey said we should wait."

"Good advice. And we all know how often you listen to good advice."

The almost-fourteen-year-old wrinkled her nose. "Hey! I listen to advice if it's good. …And if I feel like it." She grinned around a plastic cup of fruit punch.

"My point exactly. So how long are you going to 'wait' until you give her the third degree?"

"What time is it?" Trixie asked back.

Jim glanced at his wristwatch. "Just after two."

Trixie finished her drink and got up. "Well, then, I guess it's about time I talked to Diana again."

The redhead chuckled. He smiled as Trixie went over to Diana and said something to the other girl, who shook her head so quickly that a neck injury seemed like a genuine possibility.

"Oh, look!" Diana all but screeched, grabbing everybody's attention in record time. "Jim's not talking to anybody! I think I'll go keep him company!" She leapt to her feet and scurried over to join the redhead, who was shaking with silent laughter.

Trixie went over to her brothers, Honey, and Dan. "Geez," she said, plopping down cross-legged in their group. "What'd you say to her, Mart?"

Mart shrugged. "I don't know. Something about my incomparable clue for your defunct mystery, I think." He frowned. "It really set her off, though, didn't it? I tried to apologize a couple of times, but she ignored me." A sigh and a not-quite-joking: "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

Dan smirked. "In the words of a certain freckle-face: gleeps. Seriously, Mart, chill. She's pissed right now. Once she's got a chance to cool off, _then_ you can beg forgiveness." He leaned over to Trixie and said in a loud aside, "By the way, what's a gleep?"

"I don't know," Trixie said with a laugh. "I guess that would be like asking what a 'yike' is."

Now he leaned in Mart's direction. "So what's a 'yike', O Dictionary?"

"A yike is the same thing as a gleep," proclaimed Mart.

Trixie challenged, "Then what's a jeeper?"

Mart made a face. He said to Dan, "I don't mind braining _you_ with a picnic basket, but _you_," he continued to Trixie. "It's utterly appalling to have to do it just before the anniversary of your nativity."

Trixie opened her mouth. Mart was preparing to make a clever retort after she shot out one of her own, but instead she said, "Hey, where'd Honey go?"

The others glanced around and Brian answered, "She went over to join Di and Jim."

Mart grabbed his sister's arm before she could completely get to her feet. "And where do you think _you're_ going, sister? You're parking your posterior back where it was," he ordered, pulling her back down. "I don't want you ruining my chances of ever finding out why Diana's so mad at me."

But Honey and Jim didn't find out why Diana was mad at Mart, so the picnic concluded on a slightly strained note. After returning the picnic gear to Manor House, the Beldens invited the others over to their house, hoping that playing with Bobby might calm Diana down a bit. It didn't work.

The next morning, the twenty-sixth of the month, was wet and dreary. As she and Mart set the table for breakfast, Trixie complained, "The weather was so nice! I was even thinking of going for a swim in the lake. Why don't they warn us when things are suddenly going to get miserable?"

"It's called 'the weather report', sister dear," her almost-twin replied. "They air it quite a few times a day on five or ten stations, depending on your cable or satellite plan." He put the last plate on the table as Trixie continued with the utensils. After making a face and scratching his chin for a moment, he said, "I have to talk to you about something later."

"Why not now?"

"Because, unlike the weather report, what I want to say isn't for all to hear."

Trixie finished setting down the last of the silverware and said, "Okay. I'm pretty much a captive audience since it's not like I can really go anywhere in that downpour, anyway."

Mart sighed and shook his head in mock contentment. "Ah, 'tis truly a fortune to have such an eager listener."

That eager listener poked her tongue out at her brother and, after breakfast and the post-meal cleaning-up had been concluded, asked, "So what did you want to talk about?"

"Let's go to your room," Mart urged. "It's Brian-, Bobby-, and parent-free in there."

Once in the designated location, Trixie shut the door and sat down on her bed. Mart sat on the other twin bed in the room, drummed his fingers on his knees for a few moments, and said bluntly, "We lost your birthday present."

Trixie shrugged. "I know. The birthday mystery."

Mart shook his head. "No, I meant the _other_ present: the one that you can wrap up in festive paper and all that. And, technically, 'we' didn't lose it. Technically, 'I' lost it."

Well, the schoolgirl shamus wasn't quite certain of how to react to that. After a few moments of contemplating this quandary with her mouth open, she asked flatly, "You lost my birthday present?"

Mart nodded stiffly, unconsciously tapping out Morse code for S.O.S. on his knees.

"You _lost_ my _birthday present_?"

"Maybe I didn't lose it," suggested Mart. "Maybe it lost itself. I hid it and, when I looked at the hiding place this morning, it was gone. On the bright side," he continued, suddenly taking on a cheerful tone, "now you have a new mystery: The Case of the Pilfered Present."

Trixie sighed. "Are you sure you didn't just forget where you hid it?"

"It was under my bed in an unmarked box," Mart responded promptly. "Brian could verify it. But he won't, because we aren't going to tell him that it's missing, right?" He looked at her pleadingly.

"Yes, we will. What if Brian moved it to a different hiding place without telling you?"

"Then…. I'd feel like a numskull for telling you that I lost it. And it would make sense that Brian took it," Mart admitted. "He _was_ the only one who knew where I hid your present."

"See?" Trixie grinned. "Mystery solved."

Mart nodded. "I'll go ask him where he put it." He accordingly did so and came back a few moments later, older brother in tow. "Brian didn't take it," the boy with the crew-cut said flatly.

Trixie looked up at Brian. "Really?"

"Really," confirmed Brian. "But maybe one of the other Bob-Whites knows where it is."

"I only told _you_ where I put it," Mart objected.

"_You_ only told _me_," Brian echoed. "_I_ only told the rest of the club."

The young detective glanced at her brothers. "Do you think one of them could have moved it when we came here after the picnic?"

Mart frowned. "Why would they?"

"Honey and Jim thought it wasn't the best idea to hide the present in the house of a certain gumshoe," Brian remarked.

"So one of them could have moved it to what they thought was a safer place?" Trixie asked him. She continued after Brian nodded, "It doesn't sound like them to do it without either of your permission, though."

Her almost-twin tapped his chin. "Actually, I can almost picture Honey doing it in secret to keep you from finding it and to keep me from being offended."

"And if Honey wanted to move it," Brian added, "Jim would probably go along with it."

"That's true," Trixie had to agree. "Or!" She snapped her fingers. "_Or_, Diana could have moved it."

"Diana?" Mart repeated incredulously.

"Yeah. She was really ticked off at you yesterday. She might have moved my present just to freak you out and make you realize that you don't know everything—like where the present is."

Brian chuckled. "Well, Trix, it looks like you might get that birthday mystery, after all."

Trixie nodded hastily. "I'd better call the others and ask them what they know."

"Hold up, Sherlock," Mart said. "I'll call. I don't want them to know that you know about the missing present if I can help it."

Before Trixie could protest this measure, Brian put in, "_I'll_ make the calls. I'm not sure how Diana feels about talking to you yet, Mart. And Trix, all of them might get upset if they find out that you know all about your missing present."

Thus, Mart agreed readily (and Trixie somewhat less readily) to let Brian contact the rest of the club. "I'll call Dan, too," Brian added. "He might know something." So the eldest Belden sibling went to his and Mart's room to discreetly make the calls from his cell phone.

Once he came back, Brian said, "Well, that was pointless. Honey and Jim didn't say that they took it, but they think that, if one of the others moved it, it was probably for the best. Diana was torn between being upset for Trixie and gloating at Mart, and Dan said that it sounded like a—er—_good_ joke as long as the present turned up in time for Trixie's birthday."

Trixie looked thoughtful as she said slowly, "Then the only one who isn't a suspect is Mart."

Brian raised an eyebrow in his best Mr. Spock impersonation. "You think I'm a suspect?"

"Well, I sort of think you'd take Jim and Honey's side on this one and decide that Mart didn't choose the greatest hiding place."

"Hey!" Mart exclaimed. "It couldn't've been _that_ bad a hiding place. After all, sister mine, you didn't find it, now did you?"

"I wasn't looking," Trixie retorted with a sniff. "If I'd been looking, trust me: I would've found it."

Mart folded his arms crossly. After about three seconds of brooding, he grinned and asked, "Do I get to be a suspect, too?"

"Nope. You don't have a motive. Why would you want to humiliate yourself by pretending to lose my birthday present?"

He made a rather depressed sound. "So after insulting my hiding place, you won't even allow me the small pleasure of being a suspect?"

She shook her head.

"You're cruel."

"I know. So, how big is my present?"

Brian laughed. "We aren't telling you what it is, Trixie!"

"I wasn't asking that," the girl detective declared. "I asked what _size_ it is. As in, is it small enough for someone to hide in their pocket and walk out of the house with?"

"Ohhh!" Mart drew out. "No. It's smaller than a refrigerator, but too big to fit in any normal person's pocket. And it's not skinny enough to be concealed inside a shirt, either."

"Then it must still be in the house, or maybe even in the yard. It can't be far, though."

A flash of lightning briefly brightened the room and clap of thunder sounded—ominously, to Trixie's mystery-detecting ears. The trio looked to the window and Brian walked over to it, peering through the blinds.

"Well," he mused, "we'd better hope it's not outside. Otherwise, we might have done better to hide it in the bathtub!"

* * *

_Since this chapter was extra long, it might be two weeks instead of one before the next update. I'll type as fast as I can, but please be patient._

_Thanks for reading!_


	10. Chapter 10

**The Birthday Mystery**

_Disclaimer_: I recently bought a book. Unfortunately, the rights to Trixie Belden and company did not come with it.

_Note_: Well, I'm quite proud of myself! Not because of this chapter's content, but because I actually finished it on schedule. Yes, it's short. And no, I don't like it. But it's _here_. And now I know why I've been avoiding Bobby like the plague: he's hard to write, that kid! All little kids tend to be a literary conundrum to me. In spite of all this, here is…

**Chapter Ten**

"So," Brian said, turning back from the rain-spattered window. "How do we start the investigation?"

Trixie promptly declared, "Bobby. He was running all over the place while we were hanging out here after the picnic. Maybe he saw someone doing something or overheard a 'see-crud'."

"Sounds good to me," Mart agreed. "I'll go find the witness and bring him in for questioning." He suited the action to the words and, while he was in the process of doing so, Brian asked the resident detective if she had any hunches yet.

"Not particularly, but I'm thinking that it wasn't Jim and Honey. If you confronted them with the 'crime', I'm pretty sure they'd confess to it."

"So… Diana or Dan, then?"

"Diana, Dan, or you."

"Oh, right." Brian grinned. "I'm a suspect."

Trixie grinned back and nodded, thinking, _And that also means that you might have fibbed about what the others told you on the phone, to redirect my suspicions and let me have some fun solving the mystery._ She would have said this aloud but thought that it would be mean, considering that she'd already spoiled one mystery. If Brian was trying to turn this into another mystery, she didn't want to ruin it for him.

"You don't think Diana or Dan would admit to taking the box if I asked them about it directly?" Brian wondered.

"Well, Diana's mad at Mart. I think she'd keep it a secret as long as possible to make sure you wouldn't tell Mart all about it. And Dan would probably keep quiet about it, too, so that the prank wouldn't get spoiled. If it _was_ one of them, they'll probably admit it eventually, but not right away."

"That sounds like them."

"Trixie!"

The addressed girl leaned away a bit as Bobby suddenly bolted into the room and took a flying leap onto her bed. Once he had more or less settled himself, she gave him a one-armed hug and he exclaimed, "Mart says you gotta 'terrogate me!"

"That's _in_terrogate, Captain," Mart told him.

Bobby frowned. "'Terrogate's a place? You said it was askin' questions."

"It is. 'In' is part of the word. Like 'inside' or… 'India'. 'Interrogate'."

"Ohhhh." The youngest Belden looked back to his sister. "Do I get to be 'terrogated now?"

Trixie grinned and declared, "You bet you do! We need you to help us figure out something important."

"_Really_ important?" he asked eagerly.

"Really important," she agreed.

"Yay!" He added parenthetically to the other boys, "I'm important."

"You certainly are," Brian said as Mart nodded.

Still bursting with importance, Bobby again turned to Trixie.

"Alright, then," the detective began. "Where were you yesterday?"

Bobby pondered this, wanting to give the right answers in his first (and really important) interrogation. "I was at home. Then Daddy took me an' Larry an' Terry to the roll' skating place. Then I was at home. Then yesterday was over."

"And when you were at home in the afternoon, we were all here, right? With Honey, Jim, Diana, and Dan?"

"Yup."

"And did any of us come upstairs?"

"Yup."

This was getting good. Continuing on this promising lead, Trixie asked, "Who came upstairs, Bobby?"

Bobby pondered. He counted on his fingers a few times and pondered some more. Then he got tired of pondering and thought for a moment. He soon tired of this and shrugged.

"Don't you remember?"

"Of course he remembers," Mart proclaimed. He added confidently, "You can remember, can't you, Captain?"

With these encouraging words, Bobby nodded quickly. "Ummm… Honey did."

"Honey!" Trixie exclaimed. "Did you see where she went?"

Another nod. "The bat'room."

The schoolgirl shamus deflated a bit. "Oh."

"An' Brian an' Mart's room."

She perked up again. "Oh?"

"Yup."

"Did she take anything?"

Bobby's eyes widened. "You think Honey's a stealer?"

His siblings quickly reassured him that nobody thought Honey was a thief. Still, did she move anything out of the room?

Bobby shook his head once. "Nope."

Trixie chewed her lower lip briefly before asking, "Did anybody else come upstairs?"

"Diana did."

"Where'd she go?"

"Dunno. Danny was playin' with me, so I didn't see."

"Did Dan go upstairs?"

"Dunno."

"Jim?"

"Yup. Dunno where he go'd to."

"Brian?"

"Yup." He looked to the eldest Belden sibling. "You go'd to your room."

Brian admitted this. "Did I take anything out of my room?"

"Nope."

Brian smiled at Trixie, as if to say that he was now officially cleared of the crime.

Bobby looked around eagerly. "Am I holping?"

"You 'holped' a lot," Trixie assured him. "I think that's it for now."

Putting on a gangster voice, Mart put in, "But don't leave town, see? We might need more information." He suddenly reverted to his normal voice as he said, "Hey, there's another 'in' word!"

Trixie groaned. "Now you're going to make a big deal out of any word that starts with 'in', aren't you?"

"Indeed, that is indubitably what I intend to do."

She groaned again and let herself fall backward across her mattress. She had been considering letting Mart be her mystery-solving assistant, as all the other Bob-Whites were suspects, including Honey (her usual sidekick) and Dan (her backup sidekick). But if he was going to make a big deal out of being _in_volved in the _in_vestigation... well, she'd just have to do it on her own. Or hope that he got over this incredibly infuriating phase really soon.

_Great, now he has _me_ thinking in 'in's._

* * *

_Thanks for reading!_


	11. Chapter 11

**The Birthday Mystery**

_Disclaimer__:_ I still own nothing. Except, perhaps, the plotline.

_Note__:_ Well, after two weeks, here it is. I'm posting this today because (as has happened before) I might not have time on Saturday. I didn't proofread this as thoroughly as I usually do, so I'm sorry if there are more grammatical errors than usual in:

**Chapter Eleven**

Almost as soon as Bobby's 'terrogation was finished, the youngest Belden latched onto Trixie's hand and jumped off the bed, forcing his sister to sit up again lest she wanted her arm to be yanked out of its socket.

"I played your game so you gotta play mine now," he declared.

Trixie, although she would have preferred to continue working on the mystery, came to the conclusion that Bobby was right. The kid _had_ actually been helpful, so she played with him until lunchtime, planning to get back on the case after eating.

It wouldn't be until after dinner, however, that she actually fulfilled her plan. Since the weather was so awful and Bobby was so bored with having to stay in the house, Moms and Dad announced that the entire family would spend the afternoon together, playing games and watching a movie.

Once all the playing and watching was over and dinner had been cleaned up, Trixie asked, "Dad, what's the weather for tomorrow?"

Mr. Belden, flipping through the dictionary, paused in his search and told his daughter, "Partly cloudy, high of eighty-five. Chance of showers after seven in the evening."

She turned to Mart and grinned, "See? I don't need to suffer through the news—Dad gets straight to the point."

A second later, Mr. Belden exclaimed, "Here it is! 'Defenestration: a throwing of a person or thing out of a window.'" He closed the book and remarked, "I wonder who decided that we needed a word for that."

"For lawsuits?" Brian guessed. "So John Smith can be charged with defenestration in the first degree?"

The pair seemed to be settling into a discussion on the merits of that particular word and Mrs. Belden was drawing with Bobby when Trixie motioned for Mart to follow her into the kitchen. Mart, just to be a pest, pretended not to notice, so the detective wound up grabbing him by the shirt and hauling him to their destination, where she said, "Don't make me regret this, but I'm making you my assistant."

"Okay. About the assistant part, that is. I make no guarantee that you will not rue your resolution. So." He hopped onto the counter and patted the spot next to him, inviting his sister to join him. "What are my duties as your assistant?"

Trixie, too, sat on the counter as she informed him, "Your 'duties' are to do what I tell you to do."

He made a face. "Can I resign?"

"No. Your cell phone came with that hands-free headset, didn't it?"

"You mean the headset that I've never used and is probably buried in a closet somewhere socializing with dust bunnies? Yeah."

"Well, dig it out. You're going to use it tomorrow."

"I am?"

"Yes. Since you don't want anyone to know that I know my present is missing, you're going to have to talk to everybody for me. I'll be on my phone, telling you what to ask and everything through the headset." She explained, "You can't use your cell phone because then they'd know you were talking to someone."

"What do I tell 'em if they ask why I'm wearing the headset? They'll think I'm weird."

"Mart, they already think you're weird. Just make up something."

Mart nodded and mentioned that he resented being called weird.

Trixie ignored this remark and continued, "If they say anything important, repeat it to make sure that I hear it. But try not to be obvious about it."

He made a face. "I get the feeling that you're getting the easy end of this deal."

"I am not!" she objected. "I do all the thinking stuff. You just have to be a little creative about gathering information for me. Anyway, I want you to talk to Diana and Dan first, since I think they're the primary suspects."

"Diana? But she won't talk to me!" he protested.

She shrugged. "Tell her it's for my sake. And be nice. She'll probably talk to you."

He sighed dubiously but agreed to try.

"Good. Now go find that headset."

"Yes, Boss Lady." He slid off the counter, muttering that now he _really_ regretted the gift's being missing, and headed off to liberate that headset from its dusty companions.

Trixie smiled and swung her legs a bit. It was fun being the boss! She looked to the door as her mother entered the room.

"Trixie, dear, don't sit on the counter."

She sighed quietly and dismounted. So she had only been the boss for a rather pathetically short time span. But it was a start.

* * *

_April 26, Monday, nine-thirty A.M.; five days to Trixie's birthday; first day of Spring Break._

Mart put on his headset in Trixie's room and asked, "So who do you want me to see first?"

Deciding to be magnanimous, Trixie told him, "You can decide."

"How munificent of you!" He scratched the part of his ear just behind the hands-free set, as he wasn't finding the device particularly comfortable, and said, "Well, I guess I should get Diana overwith. That way, if she chews me out, I can lament over the cruelty of the fairer sex with my buddy Daniel afterward."

"You cannot," his sister glared. "I'll be listening to every word you say!"

"Oh, but I scarcely consider you a—"

"Just shut up and go before I decide to do it all myself and tell them that you lost my present."

He sighed loudly. "I was wrong. You definitely are a member of the fairer sex."

She stuck her tongue out at him as she grabbed her cell phone and called Mart's phone. Mart touched the appropriate button and said, "Hello?"

"Hi. That little voice in your head has just been replaced by me."

"The horrors of having my sister serve as my conscience!"

"Just go away."

"I think I will."

And Mart did go away, in the direction of North Crest. Along the way, he talked to his new conscience. They did not speak of anything of consequence; Trixie mostly made joking attempts to make him tell her what she was getting for her birthday.

Their conversation concluded when Mart said, "Fine, I'll tell you: you're getting a poofy pink dress with shiny purple lace. Anyway, target sighted."

Said target was at the front of her house… doing cartwheels. Or, at the very least, doing one cartwheel. Mart folded his hands behind his back as he approached Diana Lynch, who stopped mid-cartwheel upon seeing him and fell onto her face. The Belden boy quickly helped her up and apologized for startling her.

"I'm fine." She stared at his ear for a moment.

"It's a hands-free device. You like?"

She stared at him.

"You don't like. Oh, well. I'm here about Trixie's present."

She looked around. He tapped at his headset.

_"Why are you tapping the microphone?"_ Trixie demanded._ "It sounds awful!"_

"Trixie's present?" Diana echoed.

"Yes."

"The one that you lost?"

"I didn't lose it! Someone moved it!"

"Stole it, you mean." She folded her arms over her chest. "Do you think _I_ did it?"

"I don't think you stole it," he said, shaking his head.

"Right. You think I 'moved' it," she said, making quotation marks with her fingers.

Looking for a way to diffuse the situation a bit, he said, "So… why were you doing gymnastics on your front lawn?"

"I don't know why I'm even _talking_ to you," she sniffed, "but my sisters are getting into gymnastics and I want to make sure _I_ can still do a cartwheel before I show _them_ how to do one."

"Oh."

_"Oh? What are you 'oh'-ing at? Be nice!"_

Resisting the urge to tap his microphone very loudly, he said, "That's nice of you."

_"Well, __**there's**__ a brilliant line."_

Diana blinked. She smiled a little. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"But I'm still not happy with you."

"Darn."

"But…" the Lynch girl drew out, "you wanted to talk about the present you lost?"

"I didn't lose—"

_"Just go with it."_

Mart sighed. "Fine. We'll say I lost it. So. Do you have any idea where it went?"

Diana pursed her lips together, looked to the partly cloudy sky, and put her hands into her shorts pockets. "Why would I?"

"Answering a question with a question yields no answers."

Diana frowned at him in confusion as Trixie applauded, _"Great! Confuse the person who's mad at you for confusing her all the time!"_

"Oh. Sorry. Let's try this again—"

"Don't bother." Now it was her turn to sigh. "I moved it. Honest: I didn't steal it. I just moved it. From under your bed to under Brian's." She mused with some satisfaction, "I can't believe you haven't found it already…."

"Me, neither. I looked under there and saw nothing but Bri's porn collection."

_"What!"_ Trixie hissed as Diana squeaked, "His what?"

"I'm kidding," he grinned. "He keeps his science and medical journals down there."

"But… but I put it there," said Diana slowly. "It has to be there. Unless… someone else moved it again?"

To fill Trixie in on the part she'd missed, he reviewed, "So you put it under Brian's bed—that was the day before yesterday, right? After the picnic?"

"Right."

"By Sunday morning, it was gone. Did you see or hear anything—well—suspicious?"

"Um… no? Most of the others went upstairs, though. Maybe one of them moved it?"

"Could be." He told her about the information he'd gotten from Bobby. "So I have a witness who says that everybody definitely went upstairs except, perhaps, Dan. Did you see him?"

"No, but I was pretty busy being mad at you. I wasn't exactly guarding the staircase."

Mart nodded. "I'm going to see Dan, since it seems like he's the only one who knows whether or not he went upstairs. At least, he'd better know. Did you want to come?"

"I can't. My dad's at work and my mom is going into town to interview for a part-time job with this interior design firm. So I have to babysit."

"Your mom's getting a job?"

"Yeah." Diana shrugged. "All the kids are in school—or, at least, preschool—this year. I guess she's been getting bored."

"I guess so. Well, I'll see you later." He walked backwards a couple of steps and added, "Thanks for talking to me," before turning around and heading off.

Diana folded her hands behind her back and rocked back on her heels a couple of times, smiling. She wondered how long she would have to pretend to be mad at Mart, and figured that it wouldn't be much longer. After all, she had cooperated with Mart's questioning and had admitted her involvement (such as it was) in the present's disappearance. So there didn't really seem to be any point in her staying "angry" anymore.

With this reasoning, she went inside, resolving to call Brian, the unofficial mystery-creation coordinator, and ask if it was okay to forgive Mart for his imaginary transgressions.

* * *

_As far as I can recall, the Lynch estate was never given a name. If, however, it __**was**__ given a name and I simply forgot it or never knew it, let me know and I'll replace "North Crest" with the appropriate name._

_Thanks for reading!_


	12. Chapter 12

**The Birthday Mystery**

_Disclaimer_: Still do not own anything.

_Note_: I always put too much dialogue in my stories, so I tried to put some non-talking parts in here. Unfortunately, all that did was make it really hard to write this chapter. Also, I'm sorry that I haven't replied to any reviews for the last chapter, and that this is another short one. In spite of everything, here is:

**Chapter Twelve**

Trixie Belden wasn't sure whether or not she was having a good time. She had a mystery, which was good. She had to rely on her brother to investigate, which was bad. But this led to covert spy-like operations with her cell phone, which was good. She kept getting interrupted, which was bad.

After Bobby charged into her room and refused to leave, she went downstairs. Bobby followed her. She then went outside. Bobby followed her. She walked to the clubhouse to get some privacy. Bobby—yes—followed her.

Luckily, Jim had been heading down to Crabapple Farm to see Brian, and on his way he crossed paths with Trixie and her companion/personal barnacle. Knowing that she was working on the mystery and noting that she did not seem in the mood for company, he distracted Bobby, leading him back to the farm.

Trixie, finally free of unwanted companionship, settled down at the table in the clubhouse and suddenly felt in a much better mood. Mart, tromping down the somewhat muddy path through the woods to Mr. Maypenny's house, noticed this.

"Pray tell what transpired to modify your disposition in such a positive manner."

_"The whole time you were talking with Di,"_ said Trixie, _"Bobby kept trying to talk with __**me**__. And play with me. And make faces at me. Gleeps, you'd think he'd get the hint!"_

"What hint?"

_"The one where I told him to go away."_

Mart laughed. "That's not a hint, sister dear. It's a command. And not a very nice one."

_"Well, it's not very nice to bug someone who's trying to talk on the phone, either,"_ Trixie retorted.

"Too true, too true," he sighed. He sidestepped a particularly muddy patch on the path, kicked a small branch out of the way, and asked, "Say, do you think Danny-boy will be at home? Mr. Maypenny might have sent him out to clear some debris from that downpour yesterday."

Trixie hesitated. _"You could always hang up on me, call him, ask where he is, and then call me again."_

"Ooh, I like the first part of that plan. The part where I hang up on you."

_"I like the new part of my plan. The part where I trash your half of the bedroom while you're gone."_

Mart sighed again and was about to mourn the cruelty of his sweet little sister when he saw a familiar somebody clearing some debris from that downpour yesterday.

"We shall discuss the state of my room later. Suspect Number Two, dead ahead." He slowed his pace a bit and called, "Greetings and salutations!"

Dan looked up just long enough to say, "Hey," and then went back to cutting a large branch into pieces that were small enough to move easily. He glanced up again as Mart approached and put down his axe, tilting his chin inquisitively toward the blonde's new headset.

"This?" Mart pointed at the headset and mouthed 'Trixie' before saying, "Cool, huh? It helps to project my image as a busy, important—"

"Dweeb." He smirked. "No offense, man—it's doin' nothing for you."

Mart took on a hurt look. "Offense taken. But… I'll forgive you if you help me find a certain shamus's missing present."

"Well, I don't really care about being forgiven, y'know? 'Cause you _do_ look like a major dweeb. But I'll help, anyway." He smiled. "Because I'm a nice guy."

The birthday girl's almost-twin expressed disbelief that one who called one's friend a dweeb could be a nice guy, and objected again a few moments later when Dan joyfully praised Diana's moving the gift.

"Anyway," Mart said over his alleged friend's chuckles, "the main thing is that it's still missing. Have you any vague notion of the present's present location?"

"No, but, now that I think about it, maybe I wouldn't tell you about it if I did. I mean…." He held up one hand as if picturing large words on a billboard: "Mart Belden, Totally Clueless." A grin as he lowered his arm. "Yeah. Sorry, man, but I think I'm with Di on this one."

_"Gee, you're popular,"_ Trixie's voice snickered in her brother's ear. _"Remind him that it's __**my**__ present. He still likes __**me**__."_

"Then, if you're with Di," Mart began, "you also want Trixie to get a birthday gift on her birthday. So if you thought about it _again_, maybe you'd decide to tell me whatever you know about it."

Dan shrugged. "Okay, I'll tell you what I know." He crouched down next to the half-chopped branch.

Mart waited for him to speak, realized that he didn't seem to have any plans to do so, and said slowly, "You… know… squat."

"Bingo. Now, much as I'd like to yak the day away with you," he said, standing up, "I can't, y'know? So if there's anything I can do to help, tell me. If not, beat it."

"I will call you should I have need of your assistance. And my mind shall retain the memory of your unkindness when the date of your birth draws near."

"Well, the joke's on you, 'cause you don't know when my birthday is." He gave a 'so there' sort of a smirk and, evidently wanting to end the conversation on a high note, picked up his axe and started preparing for his next cut.

"Well, then, I'll just remember it for the next twelve months. Your birthday must be in there _some_where." He made a jaunty salute. "_Jaa, mata._"

Dan put down his axe, exhaling, "Da-a-amn! You just _gotta_ win every time we talk, don'tcha? Okay, I'll bite: what does this one mean?"

Mart smiled triumphantly. "'See you later'. It's Japanese."

"Huh. Wanna know NYC-ese for 'see you later'?"

"I… have a feeling I don't."

"And you'd be right on that one. See ya."

Once he'd gotten several yards away and could hear the sound of wood-chopping, Mart said, "Well, sister mine, it would seem that we have gotten nowhere in our mystery-solving endeavors."

_"Not exactly nowhere,"_ Trixie protested. _"I mean, we haven't really gotten anywhere, but we haven't gotten nowhere, either."_

"You make no sense."

_"Look who's talking!"_

"At least when _I_ allegedly don't make sense, you can look up what I mean in a simple dictionary or thesaurus. When _you_ don't make sense, it takes the scholars of the world to unravel your statements."

_"Thank you for saying I'm as smart as all the scholars of the world."_

Her brother paused. "You have a twisted mind."

_"All the better for untwisting mysteries,"_ she declared loftily. _"Now, go find Honey or Jim."_

"Either one?"

_"Yes, but try to find Honey first, if you can. Bobby said that she definitely went into your and Brian's room."_

"Alright. Any idea where she is?"

_"She—"_

Mart continued walking but slowed his pace when Trixie suddenly broke off. "Trix? Are you still there?"

_"She's coming to the clubhouse. I'll call you back ASAP."_

"O—"

_Click._

"—kay…." Mart smiled and shook his head. It seemed that his sister was taking this whole cloak-and-dagger business quite seriously.

* * *

_Thanks for reading!_


	13. Chapter 13

_**The Birthday Mystery**_

_Disclaimer__:_ I don't own anything other than the currently-feeble plotline, which I am trying very hard to strengthen.

_Note__:_ Like I said, I'm trying to get stuff moving in the story, and hopefully this chapter is a foot in the proverbial door. Unfortunately, it's a very small foot. Probably a child's size. Or roughly 462 words, excluding this note and the disclaimer. Anyway, please enjoy the shortest chapter of them all…

**Chapter Thirteen**

This was pure torture. Here she was, confronted with an important suspect in the case, and she wasn't even able to interrogate said suspect.

Trixie drummed her fingers on the clubhouse table briefly before looking over to the recently-arrived suspect in the doorway and smiling. Honey noticed that the smile seemed a bit forced but, guessing the reason for the tenseness, didn't comment on it and smiled back.

"Hi, Trixie," the brunette greeted, taking the seat next to her friend. "What are you doing here by yourself?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing," replied Trixie. "Because if I weren't here, you'd be here by yourself, too."

"I was looking for Jim, actually. It's his turn to dust the clubhouse so I thought he'd be here."

Trixie rubbed at her chin with her knuckles, musing, "It _is_ his turn, isn't it?" She shrugged. "Well, he's visiting with Brian right now. What'd you want to see him for?"

Honey giggled. "He's my brother, Trixie; I think I'm allowed to see him once in a while!"

"Of course you are—I was just wondering." Unable to resist, she leaned in a bit and asked, "Is it a secret, and that's why you're dodging the question?"

"I'm not dodging the question," Honey protested. "I… just wanted to see him, is all." She offered what she hoped was a somewhat awkward grin.

Trixie sighed. "Well, I guess that's what happens when you get to choose your own brother: you actually _want_ to see him." Although she really wanted to do a bit of pushing ("Are you _sure_ there's no reason?"), she thought that might seem a bit suspicious and, therefore, all her willpower went into convincing herself to let Mart interrogate Honey later.

"I guess I'll see you later, then," Honey said, standing up.

"Yeah. But good luck getting him away from Bobby."

Honey laughed and repeated, "See you."

Just as the Wheeler girl was opening the door, Trixie couldn't resist blurting, "Was there anything you wanted to tell me?"

Honey slowly looked back and asked, "W-what?"

Almost cringing at her outburst, Trixie waved her hand. "Oh, you know—just… anything," she finished lamely.

"Um… no?" Honey virtually squeaked.

Trixie clenched her toes and gritted her teeth. She was _this close_ to getting some information. _This close_! But to get it, she'd either have to blow her cover or be mean and pushy for no apparent reason. She didn't want to do the former because she'd promised Mart that she wouldn't tell anybody that she knew about the missing present. She didn't want to do the latter because that would probably hurt Honey's feelings.

Still, the lure of solving another mystery was strong, and this was a great opportunity to do so.

Trixie sighed.

* * *

_I'll do my best to keep posting regularly but, as I'm sure many of you know, it's about that time of year that school rolls around again. And I'm starting college, so I'm not sure how much free time I'll have on my hands. Surely enough for one chapter every other week? We'll see._

_Thanks for reading! I appreciate your patience and the very kind reviews. :)_


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